Forgiveness
by ChaoticallyInsane
Summary: -Kaneki/OC- In a world such as this one, everything is separated in twos. There was the sun and moon, day and night, and many other sides of the same coin. Ghouls and humans were another prime example. What differences they had, they settled in blood, and sadly, Nana found herself struggling to walk along the tightrope connecting the two.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul. It belongs to its rightful owners.**

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 **CHAPTER ZERO: PROLOGUE**

 **NANA**

 **"To gain everything and lose everything in the space of a moment. That is the fate of all princes destined for the throne."**

— **C.S. Pacat**

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 **THE WAY THE** story went, there was once a brilliant prince from a kingdom not too far away.

He was the youngest and smallest of four sons—the timid one was what they called him. He earned the name through his constant acts of kindness and beauty. His radiance had captured the hearts of many, for his own heart was crafted of the finest gold. His selflessness won over the affections of many civilians. Because of that, it didn't take long for him to be chosen to rule the kingdom.

Everyone thought that they understood the young prince. However, he had yet to understand his own self.

The story went on to tell of great suffering. It told of loneliness, fear, and pain otherwise hidden behind the prince's false smiles. It told of everything that happened in his ever-running thoughts. Perhaps that was the reason why the prince was so hard on himself. Though he tried his best for his loyal subjects, he still felt as if no one was ever trying their best for him.

The second youngest son was nothing like his brother. A wolf in sheep's clothing—he was ruthless in the name of war. He didn't cower where most men would have ran. Danger didn't terrify him. He welcomed it, in fact, for strength was what he prided himself on. And when their kingdom entered a great war, he was the one who stepped up on his brother's behalf.

The unstable prince was what they called him. While the timid prince may not have been able to handle calamity, he was. Yet, that, too, was a facade to hide his inner turmoil.

The story told of four princes. She had never gotten around to learning about the eldest two. The younger ones were what always caught her attention. In a story meant to cater to children's fantasies, she found herself captivated in the minds of the two princes. Despite having a kingdom to love and protect, they still felt they had nothing . . . no one . . . and covered up that loneliness by smiling or subtracting themselves.

Even though they weren't the same, they felt the same way. They shared the constant sadness that came with years of ridicule and second-guessing. A responsibility had been set onto their shoulders at a young age. They had people to protect, and they would . . . even if that meant faking happiness for the sake of others.

Her heart yearned for those fictional characters. It wasn't fair that they had to suffer alone. Regardless, it was only an old story. There wasn't much she could do about it.

It was a shame that she never got around to finishing the book.

Stories arise from two sources: imagination and experience. What stories one told depended on their stories and actions. It was her mother's choice to explain the two princes' journeys to her. And years later, it was her choice to experience them.


	2. Friendliness

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul. It belongs to its rightful owners.**

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Thank you to patamon642, skycord1990, Frost D. Zen, and Ezequiel Kirishiki for adding this story to your favorites and/or following it. Also, a big thank you to Tempest Novastorm for leaving a review!

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 **CHAPTER ONE: FRIENDLINESS**

 **NANA**

 **"The clothes he wore, the sound of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all made her feel that she had a momentary glimpse into another world** **—and she longed passionately to see it again, it only for a brief while**

 **Kathleen Winsor**

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 **IN MY CHILDHOOD** , I was always afraid to be away from home for too long.

I was one of those clingy children who couldn't go out to sleepovers. It was too difficult for all parties involved; there wasn't a night where I didn't wake up looking for my mother. Just knowing she was in the same place was me was enough to curve my nightmares. It had forced the trait of co-dependency into me because of that.

My decision to move out after graduating high school was a shock to everyone. I was such a baby bird in that sense. Leaving the nest had always terrified me. There wouldn't be anyone to chase my fears away. But, that was a major part of growing up, I realized. At the age of eighteen, I had decided that the best way for me to develop a tolerance for everything would be to face it head on.

My mother wasn't too much against the idea. She had done her part already. She had gotten me through my diaper stages, through my awkward preteen years, and through school in one piece. She knew her time as a caregiver was done when I got accepted into college. In fact, she seemed happy about it. Every baby bird needed to spread their wings. Thankfully, my time was sooner rather than later.

There were a lot of teenagers that chose to stay at home opposed to leaving for college. That option was always a choice for me, but it wouldn't be the best one in the long run. If I wanted to grow, I needed to grow on my own. My mother wouldn't always be there for me.

Because _that_ was the kind of world we lived in. We lived in a world that didn't want people to mature. It didn't wait for people to crawl, or walk, or even run. It didn't wait for parents to decide when to let their children go. The world decided when it was time to leave. It gave everyone everything, and it took everything when it was done. What people chose to do with that time—whether they made the most out of it or not—was all up to them.

It had been during the cool month of April when I found an apartment. It wasn't too shabby. A studio apartment with a nice-sized kitchen and a modern-looking bathroom, it was placed a few blocks away from the campus of my new university. The rent was acceptable for my budget range. The landlord was an elderly woman kind beyond her years. The surrounding neighborhood didn't seem too rough upon further inspection. It was the perfect place for me to start my life.

My mother had claimed that it was too good to be true. It was nothing more than a gem place conveniently in Nerima, Tokyo. The only thing that I had to complain about was that the neighbors were said to be very quiet. The silence tended to get sort of irritating after a while.

My mother was sweet enough to help move in after I had been approved. With her dark hair secured up in a tight knot, and her thick glasses sitting comfortably on her face, she assisted in hauling my belongings up to the third floor apartment. She was thankful that I was moving in spring rather than the summer. The move surely wouldn't have been as pleasant, then.

I had placed one of the moving boxes in the corner of the room with a sigh. My hands made work of dusting themselves off against each other, hoping to get rid of the stinging sensation that came along with manual labor. There wasn't a lot to bring in. However, the things that I did have were on the heavier side. It was starting to make me regret not enlisting in the help of a moving agency.

The two of us had been moving in boxes for a little over an hour now. It would have gone sooner if it weren't for our constant breaks. The thought of water was far too tempting to pass up every now and then. Of course, that, and the fact that communication wasn't as easy as it would have been for anyone else. It dragged things out since we had to stop what we were doing to talk to each other.

My mother looked about as roughed up as I did. Graying strands of hair were popping out of her hairstyle on the sides. Her glasses kept threatening to slide down the bridge of her nose. Her hands were dirty from shuffling things around the moving van all day. Her eyes, once a radiant hazel, were tired and half-lidded. Her tongue darted out to wet her chapped lips as she gazed over our hard work. Half of the truck was down. Now we just needed the other half.

There was no doubt that I didn't look any better. My purple-black hair had been pulled up into a sorry excuse for a ponytail, attempting to keep it out of my face. My white t-shirt had been streaked with dirt smudges from climbing in and out of the truck. My jeans weren't any different, and I felt myself sigh when I wiped sweat off of my forehead, getting it even dirtier with my hands. Surely I looked like I had just escaped from a plane crash.

My violet eyes glanced over to my mother, my hands moving to sign words to her. _"Are we halfway there?"_

" _Almost,"_ she signed back to me. _"A few more trips and we should be halfway done. Do you want to take another break?"_

I sighed again. _"No, let's keep going."_

It probably would have been easier on my mother to simply speak her words. But, since that was no longer an option, we had to make do with what we had.

I followed her back out of the apartment to the truck. Whereas it would have took movers about two hours to get everything, it was going to take us around three and a half. It was a good way to save money, though. A majority of my earnings throughout high school went into renting the apartment in the first place. I was now facing the consequences of my wallet running dry.

My mother climbed onto the truck after smiling at my shocked face. There was so much stuff to get through. From furniture and small appliances, to clothes and decorations, we were going to be making several more trips to the third floor. My knees nearly buckled at the thought of it.

She shuffled through a few cardboard boxes until she slid two boxes my way. The second one was smaller than the first. They were light enough for me to carry up the stairs at the same time. Sending her a nod to let her know that I was heading back up, I turned around and left for the steps. She'd be following after me shortly with her own set of cargo, I assumed. She worked far faster than I did despite our eighteen year age difference.

It would only be a matter of time until I ran into one of my neighbors. We were going to be in and out of the third floor, anyways. The landlord told me that everyone on this floor was more on the quiet side. That being said, I had figured that I was going to be surrounded by people four times my age. Yet, that wasn't the case, for when I came into the third floor walkway, a young boy was just coming out of the apartment to the right of mine.

He was far from being a man in his sixties. Rather, he appeared around my age range, if not slightly younger. Not only that, but he seemed a bit startled to see me standing there. I must have been the last thing that he expected to see outside of his apartment. His eyes widened as he stared, and I stared, too, having been shocked to see someone so young living on my floor. Both of our bodies froze up with the newfound silence; the situation may have been funny for on-lookers, but not for me. It made for a more awkward meeting than not.

His eyes glanced from my open apartment door, then to the boxes that I was carrying. His lips moved—he was trying to ask me something, I assumed. Sadly, and to make matters even more awkward, he didn't know that I couldn't hear him. He had tried to initiate small talk without knowing.

A part of me had hoped meeting the neighbors wouldn't have happened so soon. My appearance wasn't something pleasant to look at, after all. His own appearance made me look ten times more gross than I already felt.

His black hair was neatly combed and cut to allow his bangs to hang into his large, doe eyes. His clothes were neat and proper—he was wearing a collared shirt, for goodness sake. He held nothing but his house keys and a thick book in his hands.

I felt a bead of sweat run down my back. Nothing could make this more embarrassing for me than it already was.

My brows furrowed in attempt to focus on his lips. The fastest thing to do would be to try and read them, but they moved too fast, and I couldn't understand anything that he said. I guess he took my expression as me not wanting to talk, though, for a light blush settled across his pale cheeks.

While I may have been hoping not to meet anyone today, I always made sure to be prepared for incidences like this. My body bent at the waist to set the two boxes to the side. The pinkness in his cheeks shifted to a light red as he watched me dig into my back pocket. The blush only grew larger once I retrieved a folded sheet of paper, unfolding it and holding it up so that he could read the handwriting sprawled across it.

' **If you're reading this, you're more than likely trying to talk to me right now. I'm sorry, but that isn't possible. I'm borderline deaf. I cannot hear you.'**

The guilt was evident in the way his whole face now stained red. He mouthed something else, bowing down at the waist to me. It was an action that I had seen several times in my many years. He was trying to apologize for his ignorance.

I wasn't upset. I _couldn't_ be upset. It wasn't his fault; he didn't know. It was no one's fault, really. My hearing had always been spotty from the day I was born. It was hereditary, a trait that I had been born with because of my mother. She had it, too. But, while hers was able to be fixed with a hearing aid and several doctor visits, I wasn't the same. My conductive hearing loss had went beyond that point after my eleventh birthday.

I had ostosclerosis—a disease that caused the bones in my ear to knit together and block off my eardrums. My mother had it, and my great grandmother had it. My mother figured that it skipped generations when her own mother didn't receive the trait. In the end, that wasn't the case. Genetics were always a toss-up, and my hearing had been proof of that.

My primary school days had been spent learning sign language in fear of me completely losing my hearing one day. It got worse, of course, but not entirely deaf. Thankfully, it reached to where it was now—seventy decibels being the highest I'd ever reached—later on in my childhood. I had already learned to speak and do things that I needed. If that wouldn't have been the case, I would have struggled with speech even though it was only my hearing that was compromised. Now, the only things I heard were the occasional vowels and noises.

The guilty looks were a norm. There were also the sympathetic looks, the saddened faces, everything in between, and I had witnessed it all. It was a daily occurrence for me. Because of that, my new neighbor's reaction was to be expected.

I flipped the sheet of paper around to the other side to show him that I had already prepared for _this_ , too.

' **It's okay, don't worry about it. My name is Akamine Nana. What's yours?'**

He watched in almost shock as I took out a pen from my pocket, and held it out to him. Hesitantly, he accepted it, using his book to steady his writing before passing the paper back.

' **I'm Ken Kaneki.'**

I glanced up at him before nodding. Kaneki . . . he was named like the days of the week. It was an interesting name for sure. I didn't recall ever meeting someone with a name similar to his. Then again, I hadn't been planning to meet him in the first place.

I wrote something else down when he passed the pen back to me. **'I look forward to being neighbors.'**

Adding another warm smile for good measure, I hoped my words were enough to clear away any lingering guilt he had. The last thing I needed was for my neighbor and I to be on uncomfortable terms. Especially because of something that neither of us had control over.

Taking the pen from me once more, he wrote, **'Same here.'**

All of the previous awkwardness had dissipated, then. With our greetings established, there was no reason we should be as embarrassed as we first were. We'd kick things off on a good note, at least. And it was good to know that one of my neighbors wasn't an elderly man, but a well-kept boy who looked sweet enough.

I sent him a wave before picking the boxes back up, and he returned it as he walked past me to the stairs. It made me wonder if everyone on the third floor was young. Perhaps they were all quiet people; we _were_ close to a university. It would suck for me if it was true, though, for noise was something that I didn't get too often.

I set the boxes down inside of the apartment. There were boxes everywhere. They occupied the corners, the counters, the open spaces, and just about everywhere else we could stick them. It was going to take a while to get everything inside. It was going to take an even longer time to get everything to where it needed to be.

My mother came in holding two boxes similar to the ones that I had. Her arms had yet to start wobbling from the strain of the load. She was ever the hard-worker. The amount of determination in her system never ceased to amaze me.

She placed the two boxes down before blowing loose strands of purple-black hair out of her face. Without so much as a hand sign, she began digging through the boxes in search of something, and one of my brows raised in question. What she was looking for . . . I didn't know. I had packed up all of my belongings by myself, so there was no way I was missing something.

After rummaging through the things, she turned toward me, signing with her hands, _"Where is the good luck charm your grandmother gave you?"_

My brows furrowed in the middle. The good luck charm was nothing more than my grandmother's vintage brooch. She wore it when she graduated from university. She wore it when she met my grandfather. She wore it when she got married. She even wore it during both mine and my mother's births. It was said to be good luck because of all of the fortune it had been witness to.

When she heard that I was moving out, she gave it to me. Sadly, she hadn't gave it to my mother when she was younger, which—and she claims—was the reason why she met my no-good father. She didn't want to make the same mistake with me, hoping to fend away the bits of sing that lingered in the world.

That was what she called it; ghouls were sin in her eyes. They were creatures that survived off of human flesh. They tore at us, made meals out of us, and preyed on the ones that were unsuspecting. They were said to be strong and vigilant monsters. Their sole purpose was to feed on us. It didn't matter who it was, what we did, if we were married, had children, if we couldn't see, or if we couldn't hear . . . they wanted us on their dinner plates.

It was what the mass media promoted. They repeatedly told stories of children having to watch their parents die in front of them by the hands of ghouls. They told the theories behind them, and the things they were capable of. It did nothing but strike fear into the hearts of the everyday citizen. My grandmother was included. She herself was a firm believer in good luck, and the avoidance of the creatures that plagued her nightmares.

But, of course, where there was fear, there was a protector. The Commission of Counter Ghoul was the agency set out to destroy every last one of the them. Humans with weapons and skill, they did their best to save whoever they could. Even if that meant a few casualties. They were a strong and trained group of professionals that organized right here in Tokyo. Having connections to them was the only thing my grandmother could praise my father for.

Having never encountered one, I wasn't too shook up by the mention of them. It didn't strike fear into me like it did my grandmother. Though it was mostly due to the fact that she watched far more television than I did. Surely the constant warnings were sure to teeter anyone to the edge.

Still, my mother wasn't going to let it go so easily. She was going to blow a fuse if I didn't find my good luck charm. In a quest to ease her troubles, I dug around in one of the boxes I was carrying moments ago. Funnily enough, the vintage brooch was placed right on top of the pile of items. I held it up to show her that the brooch was accounted for. She let out a sigh of relief.

" _You had it this whole time,"_ she signed. _"Don't scare me like that."_

I smiled and signed an apology. As crazy as it sounded, good things did generally tend to happen when I kept the charm with me. I had been carrying it in the box when I found out that my neighbor wasn't some old man who didn't like ruckus. Perhaps it was a good thing I actually brought it to my new apartment with me.

My mother motioned that it was time to get back to work. We could converse about things that I might have forgotten later. Right now, we still had half a truck to unload. I still had a whole apartment to unpack, and on top of that, classes at the university were going to start up next week. If that wasn't more stress than accidentally losing a brooch, I didn't know what was.

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 **THE HABIT OF** being extremely early was something I had inherited from my father, as my mother liked to say. I had always thought her ramblings were a little bit dramatic. However, as I sat in the front row of my psychology class, I realized she'd been right this whole time.

I was a full forty minutes early to the class. Everyone else was out loitering around campus to make sure they trickled in at the last few minutes. I wasn't the same as them. I had rushed out of my apartment an hour ahead of time to make sure that I got a spot in the front. I should have known that college was filled with a bunch of teenagers testing the waters of no longer having parents control them. Hardly any of them were responsible.

I supposed I should've felt silly about it. It was the first day of classes and I was already making myself seem like the class pet. I was far from that. I was just trying to make sure I didn't get a seat in the back if the classes filled up. If that happened, I wouldn't have been able to see the interpreter by the professor. If I couldn't see them, then I couldn't hear the lesson, and there wouldn't even be a point in me coming to class.

The professor stood in the front behind a wooden podium. He was an elderly man, his balding head containing wisps of gray hair that did little to conceal his scalp. His glasses were wire-rimmed and hanging low on his crooked nose. Albeit wrinkled, his skin wasn't as bad as it could have been; he took good care of himself from the looks of it. His suit was adorned neatly and professionally. The aura around him was sweet—he must have been glad that _someone_ was enthusiastic for the inner works of the human mind.

Compared to him, I felt a little under-dressed. I had read in books that it didn't matter what you wore to university. It was more laid back than high school was. There were no skirts and blazers that were required to walk the halls. It was entirely free-dress.

That being said, I eased up on sorting out my clothes at home. Some of them were still thrown around in heaps yet to be put away. I had managed to put just about everything else away in the span of a week that I had been living there. However, clothing was a whole other challenge to face. If my mother were to see it, she wouldn't have hesitated to lecture me for it.

So, I sat there, dressed in a pair of shorts I found on my floor, and a sweater I earned from a charity walk two years ago. I looked inferior in comparison to the teacher, yet blended right in with some of the freeloaders who surrounded the benches outside. I didn't know which scenario was worse.

The interpreter came in twenty minutes before the class was supposed to start. She strode into the classroom looking just as classy as the professor. Curvy, blonde, and squeezed into a tight, blue pantsuit, she moved to talk to the man about today's lesson. The permanent scowl that she drew her eyebrows in was off-putting at first, but the smile she graced seconds later canceled it all out. She was American—in her late forties, if I were to guess.

The professor motioned to me, and she turned her attention my way. Like he had, she sent me a kind wave. I returned it with a smile of my own. She seemed nice enough. A little scary, sure, but nice nonetheless.

" _Are you Nana?"_ she signed to me, and I nodded. _"Nice to meet you."_

I signed a greeting back to her. She then used her knowledge in sign language to spell out her name for me. M-I-T-S-U-K-U-R-I . . . her last name was Mitsukuri. Judging by the sparkling diamond on her ring finger, she was married. Mrs. Mitsukuri it was, then.

" _Tell me if you have any questions or problems, and I'll do my best to help you,"_ she explained with her hands.

I nodded once more. She really was a kind person, after all.

It wasn't too soon after did students begin to slowly pile into the classroom. The middle rows were filled out the fastest. The first couple rows were occupied mainly by people who wore glasses, and people who showed a genuine concern for their grades. The students who came in laughing with their friends fled to the back rows. While it had been sort of lame to come as early as I did, I was more than happy that I hadn't found myself trapped back there.

The class itself was supposedly a medium-challenged one. All the higher ranked psychology classes had been stolen by the school geniuses who picked their schedules the moment they got through graduating high school. I was not of that category in the slightest.

The class went on when the scheduled time struck. The professor did tiny paces around the front of the class as he went on about his syllabus and expectations. My eyes bounced back and forth between him and the interpreter. I was trying to get the most information that I could. My hands rushed to jolt down notes, my brain trying its best to work on three different things.

It was about thirty minutes it did I become aware that there were eyes on me. Well, in particular, one set of eyes. My gaze traveled to the right of me to see a girl no older than I was. Her dark eyes widened when she saw that I caught her staring until they shifted back to the professor. A slight smile graced my lips while I chuckled. It was only the first day of class and people were already starting to get curious.

The two of us made work of sneaking glances at each other. She had caught my interest with all of her insistent staring. I couldn't figure out for what reason she was doing what she was. She was far prettier than me by miles. Her red hair was bluntly chopped in spikes around her shoulders as if she had walked out of a magazine. Her outfit was fashionable; she no doubt put more time into her appearance than I did this morning. The thick, black, hipster-like glasses on her face were obviously prescription for her brown eyes. Her nose was littered with tiny moles that made her that much more pleasing to look at. What a girl like her would want with me, I didn't know.

I had been paying attention to Mrs. Mistukuri's translations when something touched the side of my hand. My wide-eyed gaze glanced down almost immediately, catching the sight of a piece of lined paper. Words in red ink had been scribbled onto its surface. Someone had passed me a note while I wasn't looking.

It had most definitely came from the girl next to me. Her eyes were trained on the professor as an innocent smile tugged at her mouth. If there was any sign that proved it was her, that was it. There was no doubt that she had been the one who sent me the messy note. So, gazing back down at it, I read its contents.

' **Hi, you have pretty eyes.'**

My face heated up on instinct. It wasn't every day that I was complimented out of the blue. For that, my sudden embarrassment should have been justified. Regardless of that, I wrote down a response, and passed it back to her.

' **Thanks. I like your hair.'**

She smiled at the returned compliment, and wrote something else before she passed it back. **'Thanks! I'm Shida Yumiko. What's your name?'**

' **Akamine Nana.'**

' **Jeez, you never really hear those type of names anymore. It's cute.'**

I smiled at the small sheet of paper that we had been passing back and forth. She was far on the friendlier side. It was good to know that some people were willing to be nice on the first day of school. Some of the students that I saw were very standoffish—like they were too cool to talk to people they didn't know. But, not Yumiko. She was happy to pass notes to me as a form of quiet communication.

It was thrilling at first. Passing notes directly in front of the professor was something that would've easily resulted in detention in high school. However, we were passing it off pretty well. She'd scribble something down, and pass it to me under our arms. I smiled each time I passed it back to her.

She asked simple things. Questions wondering what high school I was from, if I was new to this part of town, and if I already knew people who went to this university. She seemed shocked to know that I didn't have any acquaintances. She went on to tell me how this was her second year here, and that she finally decided to take up psychology this year opposed to biology. While I was a psychology major studying to become a psychologist, she was studying her hardest to become a physical therapist.

Since she was a second-year, she insisted that she gave me a small tour around the campus. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had wandered around enough in the past week to know my way around a majority of the area. Instead, I agreed to her proposition. At least I'd be making a friend in the process. Besides, I would have another two hours to kill before my next math class.

She led me out of the class when the lecture was over with. I didn't put my notebook away for obvious reasons. I doubted she knew sign language, and I had neglected to bring up the fact that I was hard of hearing during our note passing. It would be easier to jot down phrases to her when she tried to communicate.

Students had filled the hall in maddened frenzies. A few of them were smiling; they were either happy that the class was over, or happy that they picked a class that they liked. I hoped that it was the second since the material we went over wasn't too boring. At least, for me it wasn't.

I did my best to follow Yumiko through the crowd. She was bobbing and weaving her way through, no doubt used to the flood by now. Her lips moved to exchanged quick greetings to a few people that she passed. Despite that, her eyes would glance back in my direction every now and then to see if I was still following. She didn't want me to get lost.

When we reached the outside of the building, she turned and said something to me. All that I heard were the occasional vowels tangled up in her sentences. It was nothing that I could make sense of at all. Feeling guilty for not telling her before, I used the notebook that I was carrying to write something down.

' **Uh . . . sorry I didn't tell you. I can't hear that well.'**

Her eyes chose that moment to go wide. That was, until she sent me a smile that caught me totally off guard. There were no guilty gazes. There were no sympathetic smiles. She didn't appear to be shocked about it, either. For one of the first times ever, my hearing problems hadn't thrown anyone off.

She took the notebook from me before writing down, **'Oh, it's no problem** **!** **I took ASL as a foreign language in high school. I'm not great, but maybe you can help me with that some time?"**

The smile on my face was undeniably warm. I nodded to the taller girl to show that I'd enjoy that. She was really a unique person if I ever saw one. Not many people declared to learn sign language to help communicate with me. Most simply stuck to passing notes my way.

The building she brought me to first was across from the one we were in. There were a few students lingering around chatting up storms and socializing. Healthy trees decorated the outside of it, casting shadows onto the concrete. There were brick stairs that led up to the glass double doors of the building. I never got the chance to ask her where we were. She motioned a slim finger a sign hanging on the side of the building. She had brought me to the Department of Pharmacy.

She held out her hand with pleading eyes. She must have been asking to borrow the notebook. I nodded and handed it to her, watching as she used the pen to jot down sentences.

' **This is where I have one of my other classes. It's very advanced in here. You're sure to meet a lot of pretentious douche bags if you hang around here.'**

I chuckled at the explanation she displayed. As if her words had summoned them, boys sporting slicked back hair and cardigans with the sleeves tied around their necks walked past us. She motioned a hand to them to further prove her point; I nearly laughed at the perfect timing.

One ground of males, in particular, walked out of the building moments later. Their mouths moved as they discussed who knew what, and Yumiko's face scrunched up a sour note. I followed her eyes to the boy walking in front of the group. He wasn't too distinctive. His chestnut-colored hair was cut into a bowl-type style with heavy bangs that swept to the sides, and the ends of his hair curling outwards. His eyes were thin and focused behind wire-rimmed glasses. He was carrying a few books about pharmaceuticals under his arm; there was no trouble for him in supporting their weights.

Yumiko wrote something else on the notebook. **'That's Nishio Nishiki. He's a rude asshole, and I've had a few classes with him last year. He and his friends are in some type of club I honestly forgot about.'**

I could do nothing except nod as the boy in question looked over. The constant usage of 'Nishi-' in his name was sort of strange, but not as strange as the murderous look he shot Yumiko. His already thin eyes narrowed even further into a glare. My red-headed companion simply stuck her tongue out in response. He showed his irritation by rolling his eyes, and leading his group down the stairs away from the Department of Pharmacy.

The next stop on the tour was the Department of International Studies. I knew where we were since it had been one of the places I visited already; I had a class in that building. In the field of becoming a psychologist, fluency in English was greatly appreciated. The Department of International Studies was where the students who required English courses flocked to. That said, it was a frequent stop for the first-years.

A few of the previously mentioned students sat around the brick steps in the front. One boy was typing on his phone as he bounced his skateboard around between his legs. A ground of girls sat on the other side of the stairs, smiling about things only the heavens knew. The wind blew around the trees with the cool spring air. The glass double doors of the building opened and closed as two girls walked out carrying English books. This was where my class after my next one was to be held.

Yumiko explained to me that since I was a first-year, I probably had a class here. That meant that I knew about the Department already. The truth was that she was actually taking a detour in our trip to pick up papers for another teacher in her next class. I saw no reason to complain. The way I saw it, she was only trying to get on the good side of her professors, which could come in handy when combined with university life.

The inside bustled with excited first-years. Their grins weren't things that I saw in my psychology class. Like me, they were glad that their studying paid off, and that they had gotten into Kamii University at all. I kept my eyes trained on Yumiko's bright hair while she ascended up a flight of stairs to the second floor. It was less hectic than the first. Yet, the student still lingered around to converse among their friends.

The classroom she led us into was at the end of the hall. The door was already wide open when we approached. There were students inside gathering their things to leave. I assumed that their class had ran a little later than ours.

The two of us searched around the room in hopes of finding the professor. Thankfully, we spotted him—a man with a head of thinning, black hair—standing beside a podium. His small lips were offering smiles to his students as they left for the day.

I followed Yumiko over to him. He grinned at us, telling us something I couldn't make out for the life of me. But, I _could_ make out the word hello being formed. He must have been greeting us. I shot him a smile while Yumiko exchanged words with him. Suddenly, realization came across his face. He held up a finger to tell us to wait before shuffling out of the classroom.

' **Where did he go?'**

Yumiko read my handwriting, sketching her own reply down. **'He said he left the documents in the staff room. He went to go get it.'**

Ah, that made sense.

I glanced curiously around the classroom. The number of people inside were dwindling down to numbers lower than twenty. Everyone made it their missions to flee in time for their next classes. Or, all except for a few. While Yumiko may have been unaware, I was very aware of the boy walking over to us. He didn't resemble the bland, rushing students that were in the room. Rather, he was the exact opposite.

The sound of his footsteps made Yumiko turn to look at him. There was a friendly smile etched onto his face. It was bright enough to compete with his blond-orange, messy hair, dark roots threatening to grow at the base of his head. His brows were tick, his excited eyes were brown, and he sported a pair of red headphones around his neck. Perhaps he was a music major.

Yumiko must have known him. Her lips tilted up in her own smile when their eyes met. The two of them conversed in a happy atmosphere. They had even gave each other a high five to further my assumption. Though they may have knew each other, it was beyond me who the boy was.

Realizing that, Yumiko said something to him, then motioned to me. My best guess was that she was introducing us. Either that or explaining that I couldn't hear. It was a good thing. I wouldn't have to go through the process of writing it down myself.

She wrote something in the notebook for me. **'This is Nagachika Hideyoshi. I met him two days ago. He's a freshman like you.** **He's majoring in English, I think.'**

I extended my small hand to him. His big, brown eyes went even wider. His hands were hesitant as he gripped onto mine, shaking it in a silent introduction. I moved to seal the deal with a smile. Instead of giving me one back like I had been expecting, his gaze tore away from me, finding the wall far more interesting. He scratched the back of his head. No doubt there was an awkward chuckle that followed his actions.

His lips moved to ask Yumiko a question. She answered by shrugging her shoulders a few times. It didn't take long for them to get engrossed in a conversation. In fact, they were so wrapped up in it that they didn't notice the second boy coming up behind Hideyoshi.

This one was familiar. Yumiko and Hideyoshi stopped talking as my eyes looked up into the new set of gray ones, our gazes meeting almost as awkwardly as it had that day. It was how I recognized him so fast. He was the boy I had made a fool out of myself in front of. Suddenly, I felt inferior to his—yet again—primped clothing choices.

He opened his mouth to say something to me. However, he quickly shut it, extending his hand as if silently asking to see my notebook. I gave it to him after a questioning glance. He wasted no time in using the ballpoint pen to write something down. Even Hideyoshi's eyes had went wide once the boy turned the paper around to show me.

' **Good morning, Akamine-san.'**

My jaw nearly went slack. If there was any questioning whether he remembered me or not, he had gave me the answer. He remembered how we had communicated in front of our apartments. I didn't need to tell him to write things down, either. He just . . . knew.

I took the paper, and then showed him my response. **'Hello, Ken-san. I haven't ran into you in a while.'**

He gave me a polite smile. Was it a kind of coincidence for me to run into my neighbor at the university I went to? It was a large campus, and he just so happened to turn up _here_. I hadn't seen him since the day he cught me moving in. Yet, here he was, smiling as if us miraculously turning up in the same place, at the same time, because of mutual friends wasn't strange in the slightest.

Hideyoshi's lips moved rapidly to speak to the black-haired boy beside him. I could only guess that he was asking how we knew each other. The boy's reply was hard to read, but I detected the word 'neighbors' slide across his lips. That just served to make Hideyoshi's eyes go wider.

I let out a quiet sigh. Before much else could transpire, the professor came back into the classroom, holding a folder containing Yumiko's documents. She made work of telling the two boys goodbye once she received them. Hideyoshi glanced in my direction. I assumed that he wanted to say goodbye to me, too, but didn't know how he went about doing it.

My hands moved to make three signs. _'See you later,'_ I had conveyed to them. Thankfully, they picked up on my form of communication pretty fast. Hideyoshi made similar sign, though it was a bit clumsy where it didn't need to be. Kaneki's was slower, but it still wasn't enough to be considered readable. Regardless, I appreciated their attempts. They were being nice enough to try. That was all that I could ask for.

I chuckled, shot them a wave, and left the room with Yumiko. We were to be returning to our grand tour of Kamii University.

Jeez, maybe my grandmother's lucky charm wasn't doing so bad after all.

* * *

 **To clear any sort of confusion that may arise, everything has been tweaked to start in April whereas it was centered around October in the story. That way, it'll be the start of the Japanese school year. Also, Neruma is also known as the 20th ward. I just thought it'd be easier to go by the actual names :)**

 **Fun Fact of the Chapter: Nana's name was originally going to be Rei.**


	3. Inclusiveness

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul. It belongs to its rightful owners.**

* * *

 **CHAPTER TWO: INCLUSIVENESS**

 **NANA**

 **"You could approach someone worlds apart from you by offering them, like, a handshake, a simple truth from their own lives**."

 **— Danielle Bennet**

* * *

 **MY FATHER WAS** the one who'd picked out my name. That alone was enough to shock the entire family.

He showed no interest in being there when my mother gave birth to me. She had done it alone, terrified, and wondering where her husband was. It was the worse case scenario for every wife in labor. No one recalled where he had fled to, and he didn't dare show his face the next day, or the day after that, or the following week. It was then did everyone realize how selfish of a man he was.

He was in his last months of eighteen-years-old when I was born. He was still a child; no one could blame him for his choices. After all, I had been an accident, sadly. My newborn life wasn't enough to make him want to stay.

He was the kind of man who never stayed in one place for too long. He was always bouncing—jumping back and forth between activities as if it were his sole purpose in life. His high school years had been filled with multiple clubs, sports, good grades, tons of friends, and even community service work when he had the time. He was the true ace of the Akamine family. My paternal grandparents prided themselves on creating such a strong man. So much so that they didn't bat an eyelash when he met my mother.

My mother was no one special, she often told me. She wasn't in many clubs, didn't have many friends, and didn't stand out among the other teenagers. She was too small, she supposed, for her tiny stature was always washed out in the sea of bodies in the hallways.

Their meeting had been a case of being in the right place at the right time. They had met by chance in their early years of fifteen. She claimed that my father never saw her as a social outcast, or a strange girl who was hard of hearing. He saw her as a person who had something amazing to offer the world in her own right. In return, she treated him like he wasn't the superman everyone made him out to be. They had fell in love by chance in their early years of sixteen.

I came around not too soon after their high school graduation. My father had been very upset by that—not enough to be obvious, but enough for my mother to tell. Having a child so young was taboo. They were still teenagers. My mother dreamed of going to college; she had a whole life ahead of her. My father had been presented with scholarships all over Japan. His life had _just_ started. I supposed, at that time, he felt like I had ruined everything.

They had a shotgun wedding several months before I was born. It was entirely forced. _'If you get her pregnant, you have to marry her,'_ was the way of thinking back then. It only made the situation harder for my mother. A newlywed with a child on the way and a husband soon to leave for the CCG Academy, her world was shifted into overdrive. She was so stressed, so worried, and those feelings seemed to double once my father left for the Academy two weeks before my due date. She hadn't even bothered to pick my name.

My mother's side of the family was big on the aspect of luck. They were superstitious people by nature. Everything they did was to appease the gods for good fortune. They avoided bad decisions like it were the devil himself. That being said, they all considered my mother's situation very unlucky.

My father came home to visit two weeks after my birth. My mother said that while he may not have been enthusiastic throughout the pregnancy, his demeanor seemed to change when he saw me for the first time. The narcissistic young man was startled to see his nameless child was the splitting image of him. It gave him a sense of pride, I guessed, since he only cared for himself. Oh, what happiness did the man who loved himself more than anything feel when he saw his features reflected in his child.

Eighteen-years-old, young, smart, a future CCG investigator, and now a father, he thought his life was finally going in the direction he wanted. Meeting his daughter, a phenomenon that happened by a case of being in the right place at the right time, was truly a good fortune.

" _Nana,"_ he had told my mother. _"That's what her name should be. Nana . . . my lucky number seven."_

My mother thought that they were so in love after that. She'd expected me to mend their already failing marriage. Unfortunately for her, my father stopped coming around more and more. His attention to both of us became less and less as he devoted himself to his job. And right after my fourth birthday, I saw my mother cry for the first time, clutching her finalized divorce papers.

Once I turned five, my father packed up his bags, and moved to China for a promotion offered to him by the CCG. Some good luck charm I turned out to be . . .

My entire existence was themed upon chance, coincidence, and luck. My mother told me that I was living proof of such things. Regardless, I didn't believe in it. How could I? In a world where so many things seemed to go wrong at once, luck should have been the last thing people clutched onto. Coincidence, however, was a completely different story. I was born by coincidence, I lived because of it, and now I was surrounded by it.

Because, strangely enough, Ken Kaneki was in my English class.

Granted, I didn't attend it on the first day of school, or the second, since the interpreter wasn't there to translate anything, he hadn't been what I planned to see when I came on the third day. Yet, at the same time, it should have been expected. My first class was with Yumiko, my second class was with the boy named Nishiki, and now my third class was with my incredibly polite neighbor. Coincidences sure seemed to run thick on this campus.

It was early, as usual, when I decided to show my face in class. Hardly any students lingered inside, and those who did were engaged in deep conversations with their peers. It had been a strange sight to witness. Nearly every other classroom I went to had been empty during the earlier hours of the day. It was the contagious attitude of the first-years, I assumed. They were more strict on themselves and more driven than the second-years in my other classes. They prided themselves on being able to get into Kamii University _at all_. The older people were accustomed to this place at this point.

It shocked me how many people were interested in the subject of Japanese Literature. Most students chose to take these sort of classes during the break or in their second and third years, having been fed up with it throughout high school. That wasn't the case here. There were several categories of teenagers loitering around the classroom, ranging from athletes, fashionista gyarus types, bookworms, and the seemingly popular types. It didn't look like future authors, or psychologists, or doctors, or lawyers were just in the room. They looked like they were content with learning more about the language rather than being forced in here because of their future jobs.

And thankfully, among the people in the room was none other than Mrs. Mitsukuri. Her blonde hair pinned up in a bun so tight that it looked like it hurt, she was dressed as a professional as the other times I'd seen her. Yet, I couldn't figure out why she was _here_. They usually had different interpreters for different classes. She was in my first class, now she was in my second.

Perhaps it was because the real interpreter for this one was out for a while. It would make sense—it wasn't fair for some students to miss out on classwork because they couldn't understand what was going on. I highly doubted that I was the only one who was hard of hearing.

She sent me a smile, and I returned it as politely as I could. Over the course of a few days, she and I had established a sort of . . . friendly aura. She greeted me in the hallways whenever we passed each other. She asked me how I was doing from time to time, to which I always replied that I was doing okay. She was kind of like that administrator every student was on good terms with. It was a good thing for me. There was no such thing as having too many connections.

The professor had yet to make an appearance. My best bet was that he had ran off to take care of something at the last minute. He was the same professor that Yumiko had took me to on my first day—the professor that had been fidgety ever since then. It wasn't anything to raise suspicion. So, hiking my bag further up my shoulder, I began my search for a vacant seat.

I didn't know why I was so surprised to see him in the first place. He always graced the room with his presence when he was least expected. It made more sense to predict him coming than to not. Still, I felt myself grow stiff at the sight of him stationed in the front row, his notebook in front of him, and eyes trained on the notes he had previously wrote down.

The world was not something that was black and white. There were tons of grays that made up the tiny spaces that people couldn't see. There was no right or wrong, only maybes and possibilities. There was no luck, only coincidences and chances. There was no such thing as having a day go exactly how it was planned to. The world decided everything, from how you lived your morning, how you got to school that day, or how you grew old. Even _if_ you got the chance to grow old.

In my younger years, I had never been a firm believer in anything having to do with the world. A pessimist clinging onto what little family I had left, the world was never something I saw as necessary of valuable, for that matter. It was around these years did I realize that no matter what you did, the world made everything fall into balance. It gave you things. It took away things.

I had always thought the world was cruel for taking my father away from me. Things just never seemed to work in my favor. It took away things that I cared about, and replaced it with things that couldn't compare in the slightest. That was how things worked, though. Everything that was thrown your way was predetermined upon a whim. I guessed, for some reason, the world just seemed _so_ set on me engaging in awkward conversation with Ken Kaneki.

There were tons of seats in the class. There was a kind-looking girl with glasses in the front row not too far from the professor's podium. However, my legs marched right on over to Kaneki, and plopped down in one of the empty seats beside him. _Might as well give the world what it wants._

He glanced over at me with wide eyes, no doubt surprised by the sudden company. Instead of encouraging the awkwardness that was sure to follow, I made work of retrieving my belongings from my bag. Notebook, pens, pencils, everything else I could have needed . . . all to avoid the confused stare trained on the side of my head.

I could understand his reaction. We had known of each other for over a week and only had two conversations. Both of those conversations were incredibly brief and, unfortunately, through means of a sheet of paper. We weren't exactly even on acquaintance terms. We were neighbors—that was about it. But, if coincidence seemed so adamant on him popping up wherever I was, who was I to stand in its way?

His brows were furrowed so hard that wrinkles were beginning to gather in between them. I glanced at him once I had everything all set up in front of me. I didn't need to search all through his features to know what he was thinking. He thought that it was strange that I was there, too. I hadn't been the only one questioning why the other was around so much. In fact, he seemed way more confused about it than I was, his gray eyes blinking a few times to double check that I was really there.

I let out a silent chuckle and raised my hand for a wave. My lips moved to mouth a silent hello, not fully trusting my voice since I couldn't hear it myself. He hesitantly returned the wave after a couple beats. The stiffness in his wrist told me that he was nervous. For what, I didn't know, but it could have been his lack of interaction with the opposite gender.

Since my hearing wasn't the best, I had to learn to rely on my sight. My sense of perception was uncanny in that sense. I couldn't hear the malice in people's tones, hear the sarcasm or happiness that I otherwise wouldn't have picked up on. So, I fell back on my vision as a safety cushion. I used body language to gauge how people were feeling. You could learn a lot about a person by the way they acted. And right now, Kaneki was proving that girls—or people in general—weren't exactly his strong suit.

His gaze trailed over to the room's exit as his hands scratched behind his head. They were all the tell tale signs of nervousness. His nerves were closer to high alert than mine were. If I thought I felt weird about seeing him so often, he was feeling absolutely crazy.

In an attempt to clear the atmosphere, I wrote a message on a piece of paper before sliding it over so he could see. **'Wow, you're here early, Ken-san.'**

He read the message once . . . twice . . . three times until he blinked a corresponding amount of times. He clicked open his own ballpoint pen, writing his own response into the page. Then, once he was done, he slid it back over. Black ink next to my blue, his was easy to make out.

' **All of the good seats would've been taken if I didn't.'**

I let out a laugh at the neat words. It wasn't because it was particularly funny, but because that was the exact reason why _I_ was in class early. He must have also noticed how vicious the students became when it got closer to the starting time. Everyone would scramble around to get a good spot faster than the others. Of course, a seat in the front would be like trying to be a winning lottery ticket. The chances were few and far between.

His lips twitched up slightly in the corners due to me laughing. It wasn't all the way there yet, but the nervousness he had initially felt was starting to chip away—if even the tiniest bit. That was the end goal, after all. If we were going to be bumping into each other so often as we were, he at least shouldn't have a reason to feel on edge.

He took it upon himself to write the next note. **'Did you switch into this class, Akamine-san?'**

I tilted my head guiltily, and wrote him back, **'No, I just haven't been coming since the interpreter hasn't been in. If they don't translate the lesson into sign language I can't really understand.'**

He nodded to show that he understood. The fact that I was hard of hearing was becoming a normal subject to him now, it seemed. Not that it was something extravagant in the first place; it had definitely been an uneasy thing to mention for him when we had just met. That was what came along with not being able to relate to someone. You simply just couldn't sympathize with things that you couldn't understand. But, I could tell that he had a good sense of empathy, and my handicap wasn't something that was going to throw him off too much.

I smiled at my new message for him. **'It's all right. It gave me an excuse to skip out of class for a few days.'**

' **Well, aren't you lucky,'** he had wrote back, his lips parting to release what I thought to be a sigh.

He was communicating with me. Or, rather, I was communicating with him. It was nice. I had friends growing up, but as I got older, the chances of people willing to communicate through handwriting was very slim. There were a lot of people who got frustrated not being able to speak to me. There was always that language barrier that complicated things. Thankfully, this dark-haired boy seemed to understand that it was one of the only ways that we could talk. It was either this, or he took up sign language.

It wasn't too long later did people start filing into the classroom. People slugging around their bags—both schoolbags and bags under their eyes—slid into seats wherever they could find it. And sure enough, the first row was one of the easiest to fill out.

The professor came in a few minutes later than the set time. He was more on the clumsy side of the spectrum than all of my other teachers. His short, black hair was styled up messily. His dark eyes were squinted behind his glasses. He was dressed more casually, too, a buttoned-up shirt and a pair of dark slacks being his choice of clothing for the day. He carried his briefcase over to his desk, where he rushed around to get the class started.

He exchanged a few words with the class. A quick look in Mrs. Mitsukuri's direction told me that he was apologizing for being late. He told of how he had lost track of time during his break in his office. I wasn't surprised since he was late when Yumiko and I came to pick up papers a few days ago.

He seemed a lot younger than my other professors, and generally more laid back. I hoped that was the case, for I had missed too many days to show up to class with a strict teacher. Hopefully, he didn't mind it.

He went on to explain the topics we were going to cover today. They didn't appear all too hard. In fact, he said that it was only a recap of yesterday's lessons. I couldn't have been anymore grateful. The last thing I needed was a random pop quiz when I hadn't been to class. My mother would be upset to hear I left my hometown to fail school already, and my speech about me being able to live on my own now would've been for nothing.

The teacher wrote a couple names of famous literature works on the board. Mrs. Mitsukuri rushed to sign that they were good references to help with the upcoming quiz next week. It was going to be on the topic of misfortune, and how classic writers used it to project their feelings about the rural economy. It was something that I probably would've understood had I been in class the last few days. At that, I let out a heavy sigh.

My hands rushed the pencil against the paper, trying to write down the notes that would help on the test. The girl next to me was jolting things down, too. By the way her face looked, small but scrunched up in what looked like confusion, she hadn't really paid attention to the professor, either. Perhaps I wasn't the only one who missed the lessons.

One glance in Kaneki's direction told me everything that I needed to know. His writing wasn't as sporadic as everyone else's. He was relaxed, even-paced, and thoroughly interested. He must have been the learning type—the type that focused on school and enjoyed it all at the same time. Another glance at his notebook let me know that I was correct. The entire page was filled with notes . . . just from _today_. There was no telling what was written in the pages from yesterday and beyond.

He caught me looking at his hands. Our eyes had met, mine doubling in size, before we instantly looked back to the board to avoid another awkward confrontation. I had been fascinated by his amount of notes. No doubt he thought I was some weird kid with a staring problem now, though. _Great. My social were improving day by day, weren't they?_

In an attempt to show him that I wasn't _trying_ to be strange, I wrote another note on our previous sheet of paper. He hadn't been paying attention until I slid it over to him. The edge of the paper had brushed against his finger, and he looked down at it with confused eyes.

' **What are you majoring in?'**

Realization slowly settled onto his features. I hadn't necessarily been staring at his hands, but rather the amount of notes he had crammed into his notebook.

He finished writing the rest of the professor's notes before pulling the paper in front of him, writing in elegant strokes, **'Japanese Literature.'**

My mouth fitted into an 'O' as I passed my response back to him. **'Ah, so you must like to read, then?'**

He scratched his cheek with his free hand. His eyes shrunk half-lidded, glancing down at the desk in front of us in almost embarrassment. He felt self-conscious about me discovering about his love for books. His expression was one of someone who had been caught doing something totally out of the social norm—way past acceptation.

I couldn't figure out why, for the life of me, he felt that way. There was nothing wrong with reading. I, myself, was an avid reader. There was something about books that allowed me to escape reality. When I read books, I heard voices again. Albeit imaginary and in my head, they still revealed worlds to be far beyond my one of silence.

Perhaps it was the same for him. Perhaps reading gave him the chance to experience things he otherwise never would have. Everyone was different. It was no reason for him to be embarrassed about it.

I shook my head at him, quickly jolting down, **'It's not a bad thing. I like reading, too.'**

That seemed to calm him down a bit. He offered me a shy smile, eyes twinkling because of our newfound shared interest. At least we had one thing in common . . . something we could both relate to. Well, besides living in the same apartment building and taking the same class.

' **What's your favorite author?'** he wrote.

I tapped my pen against my chin as I thought, responding, **'Yamaoka Ietsuna.'**

' **Isn't that the man who wrote the Kuro Ketsueki series?'**

' **So you know about him, huh? I usually read suspense. Keeps me on my toes,'** I answered, writing again when he nodded. **'What about you? Who's your favorite?'**

He finished adding a few more notes to his notebook before scribbling, **'Takatsuki Sen.'**

It was an author that I had heard about several times. Of course, you had to have very refined taste to enjoy their work. They didn't write the type of books you could dive into out of nowhere. It took people who were very open to everything, people who thought about the possibilities rather than the facts, to read them. Their books were for people who's emotions were deeper than the average person. With them being Kaneki's favorite, that told me a lot.

He must have been a very poetic person, then. One of those smart boys with giant hearts and love for the common tragedy. But, one should never read a book by its cover. Just because he liked to read those books didn't mean he liked to live them out.

I wrote a quick message. **'Hmm . . . I've heard of them, but I've never really gotten around to reading anything by them.'**

He opened his mouth, lips tilting upwards in the corners, and released a soft sound. It was incredibly quiet. So much so that I strained to at least catch a bit of it. There was nothing, though. I couldn't hear it, but the shake of his chest told me that it must have been a chuckle.

His response was lighthearted. **'I'm guessing your major has something to do with English?'**

I shook my head again, communicating the only ways I knew how. **'Nope. Psychology. I'm aiming to be a psychologist.'**

' **Woah, that's a lot of schooling.'**

I let out a tired sigh. **'You're telling me . . .'**

He let out the same noise he did earlier. Though it was silent to me, I still felt its vibrations. He found me amusing, and that brought a smile to my own face. Laughter was always the easiest way to lighten the air; I had finally got him to peek out from his shell. His nervousness was beginning to chip away at the center. All that was left behind was the possibility of a new friend.

I went back to taking notes. Apparently, the environment in which the scripture was written does have a huge effect on the quality of the writing. Those who wrote in places of depression and darkness tended to write more disturbing stories, even if they didn't mean to. Those who wrote in bubbly places, like a coffee shop, for instance, tended to have more luck in romance novels. Even the tiniest thing impacted something large. Then, there were even more book recommendations.

He had to have given at least ten of them by then. A majority of them were old. Some of them were new for the sake of compare and contrast. If we were to read _any_ of them, though, he recommended the old ones—the ones that I would need to go to several bookstores looking for. The ones that didn't look right unless the pages were yellowing around the edges. The harder the books were to find, the higher our grade on the quiz would turn out.

He told of the minds of different famous Japanese authors. Most of what he told went in one of my ears and out through the other. It was a continuation of the lessons he went over two days ago . . . the lessons that I had missed. While everyone wrote instructions down in clear understanding, I was confused. So confused that I found myself frowning as I wrote.

It wasn't until the class ended did Kaneki and I dare to speak again. I had been so engrossed in trying to understand _something_. I had completely forgotten that he was there. The same must have gone for him. While I was still on the first page of my notebook, struggling to get any ideas, he was already on his third.

I stuffed my belongings back into my bag, more discouraged than I was when I came in. I didn't know I'd miss this much in the short amount of days I hadn't came. A lot of what the professor talked about sounded like gibberish—or looked, since I was paying attention to Mrs. Mitsukuri. But, this was university, not high school. I shouldn't have been too surprised.

As I made a move to stand out of my chair, a black notebook slid in front of me on the desk. My eyes trailed up to find the owner, meeting a pair of bright gray ones. It was none other than Kaneki's notebook. I stared at him in shock, my brows furrowing in both confusion and surprise. His notebook was, without a doubt, worth gold when it came to this class. Why was he placing it in front of me when we had a quiz next week?

He opened to a random page. Fingers gripping his pen, he wrote down in handwriting so neat that it rivaled the professor's own.

' **You can copy my notes.'**

My eyes went even wider. He was going to give me his notebook. Looking back up at him, I tilted my head, silently asking if he was sure about doing this. He answered by waving the imaginary question off with his hand. He was sure that this was what he wanted to do. Perhaps he saw me struggling during the lesson. Perhaps this was his way of opening up, entertaining the thought of us becoming pals one day. Perhaps he was simply a good person who thought he could help. Either way it went, he was definitely saving me from a failing grade.

He wrote down another message. **'We're neighbors. You can just drop it off when you're done. Besides, we always seem to run into each other, anyways. You'll find me sooner or later.'**

I smiled, and gave him a nod. It was the truth. There was always a way for me to reach him if I did take his notebook. We shared a wall, after all. And even _he_ had acknowledged that coincidence had us meeting each other far more than normal. We were around each other regardless of if we meant to or not. So, his offer was justified.

My hands slid his notebook into my bag, signing him a thank you when it was safely inside. I made sure to mouth the words along with my actions so he could comprehend it. He simply smiled at me. _"You're welcome,"_ it seemed to say, and I didn't need hearing to understand that.

It was the last few moments I spent in the class. My bag over my shoulder, and a newfound sense of motivation, I marched to the doorway into the mass of student bodies. A lot of them were lingering around waiting for their friends. Some of them were rushing out of the door in search of their next classes. And one of the students, blending in with the ones loitering around the halls, was my new red-haired friend.

Kaneki and I had left the room at the same time. Splitting into different directions without so much as a goodbye, we made our way to our own friends, our own lives, our own paths. We were just neighbors, nothing more and nothing less. Other than classes and building maintenance alerts, there was no other reason for us to communicate.

Yumiko had a bright smile on her face when I approached. Her eyes twinkled and her lips shined with previously applied lip gloss. She paid no attention to the masses of students making their ways around her. She waited patiently as I walked over. In fact, it seemed like she had been waiting for me for quite some time.

I shook my head and wrote a message for her. My hands held the notebook up so that she could read it. Instantly, she shot me an incredulous expression.

' **What are you doing spying out here?'**

She took the notebook for herself, responding, **'I wasn't spying! You told me you have this class, remember?'**

I waved her off. It was a good excuse, I had to admit. In my time knowing her, she had revealed a lot of her personality to me. One of those traits of hers was that she was a terrible liar. She told the truth whenever she could because she was a fumbling mess when she didn't. Even through her handwriting, one could tell that she was hiding the truth. The way she slanted her words were a dead giveaway.

It wasn't like I was surprised. She had been pretty willing to hang around me ever since we met, shockingly enough. We had a few classes together; sticking together was easier than not. But, that's all that it was. We were campus friends. We stuck together because we were _stuck together_. Yumiko was the one who made school more tolerable . . . especially in classes where the interpreter wasn't planning on showing up.

She tapped her chin with my pen a few times, eyes surveying the lingering student body. A few feet away, a boy was smiling with a girl. He was attractive, I supposed, with curly blond hair and brown eyes, but he wasn't exactly what she was looking at. She was staring at the bag of takeout food he was bringing to the girl.

' **Do you want to go grab lunch with me?'** she had wrote down suddenly. **'I know this restaurant that serves the best udon. You'll love it.'**

She handed the notebook back to me, and I answered, **'I'm not really in the mood for udon.'**

Before I could show her my writing, she started her march through the school halls. My brows furrowed at the sight. My jaw dropped, too. She hadn't bothered to hear out my opinion. I guessed the boy's takeout had really stirred up her taste buds because she was already in full speed toward the exit. I could do nothing but clutch my notebook to my chest, and scramble past students to get to the redhead.

I had opened my mouth to call out to her a few times, but ultimately decided against it. It would be too embarrassing. My voice worked just fine. Still, that didn't mean that I could utilize it well. I couldn't hear what I was saying. It could be correct, it could be slurred, either or, and I wouldn't know. I couldn't exactly hear myself that much to determine that. So, I kept my mouth shut, chasing after my new companion.

She finally stopped outside of the building's double doors. A few people were sitting on the stone steps ahead, conversing about topics that must have been interesting. White clouds wisped across the bright, blue sky, warding off any ideas that it would rain today. It looked like any other campus day. But, I wasn't paying attention to that. I was focused on getting to Yumiko before she left me behind.

My footsteps were probably loud as I walked up to her. She turned around, smiling, and said something. I couldn't make out what it was. Thankfully, though, she had exaggerated her vowels enough for me to read her lips. She was telling me to come along with her. _Not that I had much choice in the first place._

Be it because she was older, or because she was a resident to this part of Tokyo, Yumiko knew more than I did. She had experienced more than I ever had. Every shortcut in life, every cheat, every easy way out, she seemed to know. She was smarter than me in that sense. Street smart was what she called it. She learned by living and not through books. She had lived her life doing what I had set out to do _just this year._

So, I guessed I allowed her to get away with things like this. Cutting corners around school was how it started out. Now, since this was our first time being together outside of Kamii University's campus, I was allowing her to show me the little hidden luxuries she knew. Yumiko was the kind of person people like me aspired to be. What was a better way to learn than from the master themselves?

She led me out of the school's entrance and along the sidewalks of the bustling city. Cars drove about in a haste, trying to beat the traffic that was nearly inevitable. There were more of them than people walking. Perhaps that was why there was so much traffic around here.

The streets were lined with shops and apartment buildings. Trees were planted every so and then. Whether it was to improve air flow, or for decoration, I couldn't tell. Birds flocked to their branches either way, obviously happy for a place to call their home. I had watched as a bird brought her chicks food she has stolen from a street vendor.

Some kids had decided to ditch school for the day. Teens adorning the local high school's uniform strutted through the sidewalks in search of entertainment. They didn't look too scholarly, anyways. Each boy had spiked up hair and brows permanently tilted in scowls. The girls' shirts were buttoned low enough to show insane amounts of cleavage, hair chopped in layers, and makeup bordering edgy. I looked away as to not draw too much attention to myself.

One of the shops had been a pet supply store. It was ran by an elderly woman, graying hair pulled up into a bun, and a knitted sweater around her thin frame. She greeted customers with her cat. The cat, who didn't look too excited to be there, swayed its orange tail at her leg as it it were bored. It didn't bother the lady, though, for she would simply reach down to scratch underneath its chin whenever it got too frumpy. I made a mental note to stop by one day to greet the grumpy pet.

Yumiko saw that I had been paying more attention to the environment around me rather than where we were going. Her hand wrapped around my elbow to pull me out of the way of a businessman. He'd been clad in a brown suit, staring at his watch with a frown, and undoubtedly would've gotten upset if we were to collide. Thankfully, he hadn't noticed me, and she had pulled me aside in time. I had received a shake of her head for my mindless observing.

She pointed to a building a few doors down. It was nothing special. Dark brick exterior, high windows, and a wide range of bright flowers lining its entrance, it could've easily gotten lost among the competition. I hardly knew it was a restaurant until I saw the sign hanging above. It had a sort of . . . family-owned atmosphere to it. Which wasn't a bad thing. Those usually tended to be the best places to dine.

I followed her inside. The smell of food quickly filled my senses. Brown was the scheme of the interior. The color coated the walls, and likewise shades intertwined in the wooden tables. People were seated both with friends and by themselves. Waiters and waitresses wearing white uniforms bounced from table to table in attempt to fill out orders. That combined with the light atmosphere proved that this place was really a hidden gem.

 _As expected from Yumiko._

A boy wearing a white, long-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt, black slacks, and a black apron greeted us upon our entrance. With green eyes narrowed in boredom, and messily-styled, short, brown hair, he blended in right with the other employees. The first thing I noticed was how thin he was. Along with the slight bags under his eyes, I assumed that he was our age. He sure did fit the role of a college student living without his parents.

He said something before bowing to us. Beside me, Yumiko waved him off, smirking as she responded. For a brief moment, I could've sworn I saw his left eye twitch at her comment. He turned on the heels of his black shoes to walk further into the quaint restaurant. Yumiko motioned in his direction with her head, signalizing for me to follow. He must have been escorting us to our table.

He led us to a booth by a window out-looking the city streets. I had scooted into one of the brown seats, and Yumiko happily took the one across the table. She exchanged a few other pleasantries with the waiter while he placed two menus in front of us. With that, he was gone, and we were left to our own devices.

I quickly wrote in my notebook. **'Do you know him?'**

The two of them appeared like they had met far too many times to just be customer-waiter. To be honest, I would've thought they were friends by the small sparks of irritation that had settled in the boy's thick brows. It wasn't a look someone would give to even a reoccurring customer.

I passed her the book, and she opened her menu before writing, **'Sure do. That's Hiroto Anzai. He went to the same high school as me up until he suddenly found an interest in getting a job. He graduated three years early because he's supposed to be some kind of genius or something. He took a year off from school. He's a fourth-year at Kamii.'**

Woah. He was the same age as Yumiko, a year older than me, but was far more advanced than anyone could dream of becoming. He had graduated high school at the age of fifteen. The bags under his eyes weren't from working. They were probably from studying.

It interested me to hear about Yumiko's past. She hardly spoke about it, claiming that she had the same past as every other average high school student. However, I believed there wasn't such a thing as 'average.' Everyone had something special. Now, she was starting to reveal some of it, even if that was just an old friend.

She skimmed over the menu, having said enough. I opened mine to do the same. There were many assortments of udon, ramen, and other foods. A lot of them were hearty. No doubt they would make me sluggish if I ate too much. At that, I let out a sigh. _That was why I didn't want udon._

Not too long later, our waiter, Anzai, came back from assisting other customers. I hadn't noticed he came until he placed a cup of water in front of me. Eyes wide, I gazed up at him like a deer in headlights. I didn't order water. He had brought both Yumiko and I a cup with block-y ice. It made me feel bad to know he went through the trouble of bringing something we hadn't ordered.

Yumiko passed my notebook to me before I could intervene. She had wrote something new on it. And immediately, once I read it, my tension eased up.

' **Don't worry about it. He always gives me free things when I stop by. It's his weird way of trying to be nice.'**

Anzai retrieved a pocketbook and pen from his apron. His mouth moved in suggestion that he was asking Yumiko something. More than likely he was asking her what she wanted to eat. That was, yet again, another problem. Would it be awkward to have to tell him what I wanted through paper?

She explained her own order to him before glancing at me. She pointed in my direction, then pointed to her ear, shaking her head to let him know that I couldn't hear. Realization seemed to fit across Anzai's face. Then, what he did next shocked me to the core.

" _Don't worry. I can understand you,"_ he had signed to me, easily and effortlessly. _"I can take your order. It's no problem."_

Trying to contain my shock, I ordered a simple bowl of ramen. He bowed to us once more and left to go place our orders. Once he was gone, I glanced at Yumiko, silently asking her how the hell her friend knew sign language. Interpreters were hard to come across, let alone random citizens who were fluent.

She smirked as she wrote down, **'See? Told you he's a genius . . . a genius working a shitty minimum wage job.'**

At that, I chuckled. It didn't matter how smart or talented you were. Everyone was a slave to the economy. Especially the day-to-day college student. Money was a critical factor during these times, and I didn't know Anzai for it not one bit.

Yumiko made work of initiating the conversation while we waited for our food. She was the better socialite. Whereas I would have trouble coming up with things to talk about, she asked questions that branched off into other topics. When I asked her about it, she said that she learned to make connections for the sake of getting through school. Apparently, Yumiko wasn't all too great with studying, but making friends brought her good school allies—moreover genius ones like Anzai.

She told me that there was to be construction on campus starting Thursday, and the way I took to get to my Japanese Literature class would be blocked off. They were installing a new line of trees. Cherry blossoms were quite popular these days, and the administration thought it'd add to the curb appeal of the university, so they were planting a walkway of them. It'd sure be a sight to see since it was springtime.

' **How's your class with Nishiki going? Is he rubbing you the wrong way, yet?'** she wrote me after talking about the trees.

Nishio Nishiki, who I only knew of because of her pointing him out to me, was a boy that was in my biochemistry class. He sat off to the side with people he constantly surrounded himself with. He was more like the cool guy, if I were to guess off of body language. He didn't seem to care much about anything. Because of that, I hadn't worked up the courage to introduce myself to him. The way Yumiko described him made me not want to, anyways.

I shook my head, writing down, **'I haven't met Nishio-san, but the class is all right. It doesn't look like it's going to be too hard.'**

She smiled. **'That's great. Make sure it stays that way. It's easy to get overworked in your first year of university.'**

I wanted to laugh. It was only college. What was the worst that could happen in the span of one year?

She told me that I was lucky I hadn't ran into Nishiki yet. I asked her why she wasn't too fond of him, to which she replied his attitude got on her nerves during their first year. He was sort of arrogant and refused to let her do much work whenever they were in group projects. Though she understood why—she didn't believe in her knowledge abilities that much—she wished he would've let her down gently before calling her out entirely.

All that did was make me want to avoid him even more. He looked like a nice person in class. He smiled the brightest out of everyone in his small circle of club members. But, I guessed knowing a person was more accurate than looking at them. It was the advantage that Yumiko had over me with almost everyone.

I wasn't much of a talker . . . for obvious reasons. It was easier to not say much at all rather than making myself stand out too much. Thankfully, this year, I decided that I would step out of my comfort zone. Sitting with her in a restaurant was one of the first steps.

Anzai came back moments later with a tray of food. Yumiko had ordered udon. I stuck with ramen for the sake of being here at all. He neatly placed the bowls in front of us with the same stoic expression on his face. He didn't exactly appear thrilled about his job, yet he was trying his best.

He said something to Yumiko before he left. She instantly frowned up, waving her fist at his retreating back. It made me smile. Perhaps stepping out of my comfort zone wouldn't be such a strange thing. How things went from now on all depended on who I spent my time with. If it was spent with such kind people, it was sure to be a great experience.

* * *

 **I ALWAYS KEPT** my hair tied back when I studied, or cleaned, for that matter. My grandmother said it helped with productivity. It was definitely a placebo effect. It didn't really work, but it did in my head. That was all that mattered. Especially since studying right now was such a crucial part of my night.

My hair had long since been secured back with a scrunchie, and a white headband to hold my bangs. It didn't dare move as I sat hunched over my notes from Japanese Literature. My hands scribbled words onto the lines sheets of paper in my notebook. Glancing back and forth between my white one and the black one borrowed, I did my best to get everything done as efficiently and quickly as possible. They were not my notes to keep, after all. Their owner needed them just as much as I did.

It had been a full day ever since I'd received them. We had sat next to each other in class this morning, but I was too busy working to get his notes down to really speak to him. We exchanged simple hellos, at the very least. Other that that, he stuck to his work, and I stuck to mine. That was how it should have been. College was a time for studying, not for talking in class.

My fingers were cramping at the joints and my back was aching. All of the words were starting to jumble together into one large mass. It was the side effects of being tired. I could've killed then and there for a cup of coffee to wake myself back up, but I had yet to buy a coffee maker, and finishing the notes were my number one priority. It was a bad situation all because the interpreter decided to skip out on class for two days.

Finally, after another twenty minutes of slaving over pen and paper, I wrote down the last bullet point. Everything was done. With that said, I stood up from where I sat on my rug to stretch my limbs. My back cracked, my elbows popped, and my lips parted to release a yawn.

My clock flashed eight o'clock. It was getting late. I had to hurry things along.

I had all intentions of returning his notes the moment I was done with them. It didn't matter that my hair was pulled back, or that I was still dressed in what I went to school in that day. I slid on a pair of discarded black sandals and left the apartment.

Like Kaneki said, it wouldn't be too hard for me to find him. Three steps into the hallway landed me directly in front of his door . . . the door that belonged to my dark-haired classmate.

I sucked in a heavy breath before knocking at the door His notebook was safely tucked into my hands. Strands of my ponytail blew around in the cool spring air, cascading in random shades of black and purple. And in my other hand was my communication notebook in case he tried to initiate a conversation. He shouldn't have to, but at least, by now, he had no problem talking to me without things being weird.

Then, the door opened.

I wasn't met with a pair of big, gray eyes. Instead, brown ones, cool and bright, stared down at me, widening at the same time mine did. The blond-orange hair still black at the roots and thick, dark, bushy brows were a dead giveaway as to who it was. So were the headphones around his neck. I took a step back to take in Hideyoshi's face in its entirety. He looked about as shocked to see me standing there as I was to see him opening the door.

He was vibrant as ever. A dark green hoodie containing some logo was pulled over his torso, and with jeans that had been washed one too many times, he played the bright character quite well. The red headphones matched his red sneakers. In fact, it made me wonder when red and green had become such a good combination in days other than Christmas. I was thoroughly convinced that Hideyoshi could wear anything and get away with it.

I waved to him, clearing my throat before asking the boy if Kaneki was home. I was sure my words were slurred beyond comprehension, but it was still worth a shot. Especially since saying it would be faster than getting my notebook and writing it down. However, it was apparent in the way Hideyoshi's eyes went even wider that I had caught him off guard by actually talking.

He nodded and glanced back into the apartment behind him. His mouth moved to speak words to someone I couldn't see. I had a good speculation who it was, though, considering where I was. Sure enough, moments later, he stepped aside to make room for a second person, and Kaneki stood in the doorway with a smile.

I was glad that he was there. It would have taken a while to explain to Hideyoshi that I came to drop off his notes. He didn't seem like the type to let things go without asking questions, either. It saved me a few pages in my communication notebook.

I bowed, holding out the borrowed book. His pale hands—so pale it didn't look like he got out much—grabbed hold of it, waving my gesture off to let me know that I could stand straight. He wanted me to know there wasn't a problem. He mouthed words that looked an awful lot like a thank you while he raided a hand to scratch the back of his head.

I had turned to leave, yet never got the chance to. Hideyoshi held out a hand to stop me from going. I had stopped in my tracks, turning to look up at the boy with furrowed brows, both wondering what he wanted and what he was doing. He didn't respond. Rather, Kaneki and I watched as he retreated into the apartment by himself.

He came out again holding a sheet of white paper. Though the words were messy, I was able to read the kindhearted question that he had wrote on it.

' **We were about to head out for coffee. Do you want to come with us?'**

What a coincidence. I was just thinking about needing coffee earlier to help me stay up to study.

I glanced between the two a couple times. Kaneki sent me a nod to show that he agreed with his friend's proposition. They were both inviting me out with them for whatever reason. Probably because I happened to be there when they were about to go, but it would have been nice to take a break for some much needed caffeine. So, I nodded, using my voice to say that I wanted to change before we headed out. Or at leas, that what I thought I said.

They understood that much. Two nods from each of them let me know that they'd wait for me.

I jogged back into the apartment. It wasn't too cold. Still, the spring breezes were beginning to pick up lately around nighttime. Summer was not long away; the weather must not have known that. To avoid facing the blunt end of the wind, I exchanged my shirt for a long-sleeved one. I decided to keep my hair in my ponytail, just taking the headband out to let my bangs back down. It was good enough. After sliding one a pair of flats, I grabbed my house keys to meet the boys outside.

They were standing outside my door, talking about who knew what. Two pairs of eyes watched while I locked the door behind me. Then, I nodded to them and gave them a thumbs up. We were all ready to go. Now all that was left was to face the town in search of hot coffee. Such was the life of university students.

We walked down the stairs of the apartment in a groggy stupor. Hideyoshi used my notebook to inform me that he'd been craving coffee for a while now and was in desperate need of a break. They had been holed up in Kaneki's apartment studying since school ended. Apparently, Kaneki wasn't a big fan of instant coffee, so going out was their only way of getting an energy fix. During his story, I found myself smiling at the boy's displays of dramatic gestures.

He explained that he was planning on studying for a couple more hours until he went home tonight. He studied better when he was with Kaneki, he claimed. However, when he held up that page for me to read, Kaneki sent him a look as if he were calling bullshit. That was what made me laugh. I guessed Hideyoshi wasn't that big of a study person after all.

No matter how late it got, it was never too later for Tokyo. Everything was bustling with lights and so much action. Everyone was at a faster pace. It sort of got overwhelming sometimes, but it was more and more fascinating each time. Especially regarding all of the buildings. Even though I had never been much of a fan for architecture, high rises were slowly becoming a favorite of mine.

Cars zoomed by due to the lessening amount of traffic. Younger people were out more now that the sun was away. High school students filled the sidewalks as they walked home from their cram schools. I supposed now was a good time for them to get into studying. Though it was still the beginning of the year, it was never too early to train to get into university.

I didn't know where we were going. Hideyoshi led the way through the many turns and corners of the city. I simply followed behind him whenever the green light signalized for us to go. Then, there was Kaneki, who appeared to pick up on the directions the further we got. Unlike me, he must have known the place we were going.

Eventually, the amount of people along the sidewalks trickled down to a manageable number. The people were growing younger and younger, ranging from teens to people in their early thirties. I paid attention to the way everyone seemed to know where they were going. No one looked lost. But, then again, it was a common side effect of living in the city. You had to remember these sort of things or you'd just end up lost.

Hideyoshi rounded one last corner and came to a stop in front of a large building. I tilted my head up to gaze at it. It reminded me a lot of the building Yumiko took me to, the one her friend worked a part-time shift in. It was two stories, plain and quaint and nothing spectacular. Leafy green vines snaked down the walls to go with the small plants placed around the front door as decoration. Through the two glass windows, I could see people laughing and talking inside around tables. The light up sign by the plants told me all that I needed to know. _Anteiku_ , it read, and it was Hideyoshi's favorite cafe.

The inside was nice. It had a homey feel to it. Flooring a dark wood to match the dark tabling, I made sure to step on the welcome mat as to not drag in any dirt. There were two people behind the register taking orders. Judging by the smiles on their faces, today must have been a good day. Either that or they felt the easiness in the atmosphere like I did.

Hideyoshi and Kaneki walked over to the front register. I followed behind while I looked the scenery over. There were big, brown, shiny round tables by each of the two windows, brown bar stools around them. Painting of nature hung on the cream-colored walls as decoration. Brown lights hung from the ceiling, along with a wooden ceiling fan overhead that had yet to be turned on. Potted plants resting in each corner to add onto the wood effect. It was very nice; the pleasant-looking people seated at the tables with snakes and coffees only proved that further.

The two taking orders were both men dressed in white button-up shirts, red ties, and black vests. Hideyoshi smiled at the first one; he was an elderly man with hair as white as snow. Hidden beyond his many wrinkles was a kind smile. His eyes, on the other hand, were so squinted I couldn't tell what color they were. Nonetheless, Hideyoshi made work of ordering, pointing to the snacks on display every now and then.

He glanced back at Kaneki and I, to which the black-haired boy nodded toward me to say I could order first. I quickly scribbled a message in my notebook for the man. A measly caramel Americano. I didn't want anything too fancy. Kaneki ordered next, and Hideyoshi went back to pointing to the snacks.

After we paid, they picked a table against the wall opposite from the front door. It was round, brown, and shiny, like the others, though instead of bar stools, lime green chairs were pushed up against it. Hideyoshi sat by the wall, Kaneki right next to him, as I sat on the opposite side so that I could look out of the windows. Beyond them, the town was still twinkling with its hundred lights.

I placed my notebook on the table, and wrote a new note for them. **'What is this place?'**

Hideyoshi tapped his chin before reaching for the notebook himself. I handed it to him along with the pen, making sure not to accidentally poke him with it as I did so. I couldn't help but notice that he was becoming less and less hesitant to write things down as a form of communication. Of course, there were still times where he almost spoke to me, but he was catching on pretty fast.

' **I found it when I was out one day and I've been coming here ever since. Their coffee is amazing.'**

He raised a brow in Kaneki's direction for confirmation. Jumping a bit because of the attention suddenly being on him, he nodded in agreement. _The coffee really must have been good, then._

Changing the subject, Hideyoshi continued to write, **'So, Akamine-san, where are you from?'**

' **Please, Nana's fine. I'm from Karuizawa. I moved here for schooling,'** was my immediate answer.

Karuizawa was a town at the base of Mount Asama, in the Nagano prefecture. It wasn't as busy and bustling as Tokyo by a long shot even _with_ the amount of tourists we received. There were more trees. Ponds and waterfalls, it was the countryside compared to here. It was where my mother lived, my grandparents lived, and where my father had lived once upon a time. Though, the best thing was, it was only an hour away by bullet train.

Kaneki took the notebook for himself this time, his brows raising in surprise. **'All by yourself?'**

I nodded. Hideyoshi's jaw dropped a bit in shock. It wasn't too uncommon for people to come to Tokyo to get out of their hometowns once they graduated. However, it took a lot of work and responsibility. And money. And smarts. And just about anything else out there just to get out for a few years.

With that question out of the way, the worker from before came over to the table carrying our orders. He gave us comforting smiles while he placed our drinks in front of us. Or, more like drinks and a couple snacks for Hideyoshi. Seems like he was hungry this whole time, too.

I took a sip of my Americano. It was rich, far better than the instant coffee that I was used to. Now I could understand why Hideyoshi was so big on this place. I usually got caramel added to bring down the dark taste of Americano. It was hardly ever this sweet with it, but this place had made it just right. They've made a new loyal customer.

I put down my coffee to write in the notebook. Hideyoshi had asked me a question, so it was only fair that I asked one back. We hardly knew each other, after all. If it weren't for us going to the same school, we wouldn't know a thing about each other. Though, I supposed that was why they invited me with them. We were going to have to be around each other quite a bit. It would make things easier if we at least knew who each other were.

I held up the new sign. **'What about you two?'**

Hideyoshi was the one to answer, chewing a bit of his sandwich as he wrote down, **'We're childhood friends. We've grown up together since Kaneki moved and came to my elementary.'**

I smiled at that. Anyone could tell that the two of them were close. Wherever Hideyoshi was, Kaneki was sure to follow not too long after, and vice versa. They had a sort of chemistry that could only be developed after years of friendship. Thus was proven in the moments of vulnerability Kaneki showed, rolling his eyes and getting pretend irritated with his friend.

' **That's so sweet,'** I had replied.

Hideyoshi waved off my statement. He was a lot more . . . animated than his friend. There was a certain charm and confidence that came from him. He was the happy-go-lucky type for sure. It worked well for him, seeing as how he liked to wear vibrant colors. Actually, I appreciated it, for he definitely was the sort of person you'd want to associate yourself with.

He held up a new note. **'Why don't I ever see you around campus?'**

' **We don't share any classes.'** I held up my answer before quickly scribbling down, **'It kinda sucks because you seem like a nice guy.'**

At my added comment, Hideyoshi grinned wide. He must have enjoyed my compliment. But, instead of him writing something, it was the boy beside him who took the notebook next. His face was turned up in a deadpanned expression to match the stoic way he glided the pen across the paper. And when he finally held up the book, I let out a laugh.

' **Great. I'm going to have to hear about this for the rest of the night.'**

In the short conversations that I've had with my neighbor, he had proven to me that he did, in fact, have a sense of humor. Sure, he had his moments of nervousness and social discomfort. Regardless, he was pleasant nonetheless. They bother were. I could immediately understand why they were friends with each other. They were so different, yet so alike. Like the sun and moon perhaps. In this case, though, Kaneki was the moon, and he was ready for his friend to go back to his own house.

When we weren't paying attention, Hideyoshi placed his coffee onto the table as softly as possible. His eyes trailed over to the painting on the wall beside us. It wasn't until I finally looked in his direction did I notice that his hands were fidgeting where they were on the table.

His thick brows were furrowing together in the middle. He was avoiding eye contact with shaky brown irises. It didn't take much to realize that he was getting uncomfortable. But, for what? Clearly, there was something going through his head all of the sudden, and he felt like he couldn't say it out loud.

 _Was it something that I did?_

In attempt to ease his troubles, I wrote a new note for him. **'What's wrong?'**

He scratched his neck as if debating something, then replied, **'Can I ask you something about a sensitive topic?'**

 _Oh._

 _That._

He was curious about my hearing. It wasn't like talking about it upset me. He was trying to be considerate about it, wondering which was the best way to approach me. For that, I couldn't really hold anything against him. At least he asked if I was okay with it first. So, I nodded to let him know that I was all ears.

 _Ha!_

' **Can you hear yourself laugh, Nana?'**

Oh. Was that it? It was such an easy question to answer.

I smiled while I wrote down the most detailed response I could. Even Kaneki had seemed interested in my answer. The two of them both leaned forward a bit to get a better look at what I was doing. And when I turned the paper around for them to see, they both deadpanned.

' **Nope!'**

Kaneki parted his lips as if to release a sigh. I guessed they had been expecting a more interesting answer. I figured that it was better to tell the absolute truth, though. It had been years since I've heard myself fully laugh. I've caught bits and pieces every now and then, but if I were asked to describe it . . . I wouldn't be able to.

Hideyoshi leaned back in his chair, holding up a new message. **'Well, how do you know if you're laughing or not?'**

I tapped my chin before writing, **'I can feel the vibrations. I wasn't always deaf, so I can put two and two together.'**

They both nodded in understanding. However, unlike Hideyoshi, Kaneki's cheeks were starting to dust a light shade of pink. The situation must have been making him uncomfortable. It was shown in the way he wrote an apology for his best friend's curiosity. Hideyoshi had obviously made him embarrassed about the topic.

I waved him off. **'Oh, it's okay. I'd rather you guys ask questions to try to understands than to be bothered by it all the time. It's only human, right?'**

Hideyoshi nodded, excitedly. **'She's got the right attitude! You'll fit right into our little group of misfits.'**

I was flattered by his words. He thought I was nice enough to be buddies with. It was all that I wanted, really. I came to Tokyo to lead a life different than the one I led in my hometown. No longer did I want to see the looks on elderly people's faces as my mother and I entered their shops. I wanted to start over, make friends, do something new, and pretend that the world didn't give a damn about my loss of hearing.

But, still, it was fun to tease people. That hadn't change no matter how far I moved. So, I wrote down another note, making sure my expression was offended while I showed it to the boy.

' **What makes you think I'm a misfit? Rude much?'**

Hideyoshi's brown eyes went wide. He had just assumed that I wasn't too popular. Though he was right, it was still funny to see the embarrassment on his face. He stammered on words that I couldn't hear, forgetting about the notebook in a fit of shock. He had even ditched his sandwich—which he had been concentrated on this whole time.

I felt myself let out a laugh, and Kaneki joined in soon after. Regardless, Hideyoshi kept on talking, his lips moving at a fast pace. He didn't get that I was kidding. He genuinely thought that I was offended, and that made it all the more funnier.

It was nice. _This_ was nice. Meeting Yumiko, Kaneki, and Hideyoshi wasn't exactly what I was planning to do, but it went along the lines of it. I was glad that it had been them that I ran into. Anyone else would have felt weird at this point. Thus was the hopes of a naïve teenage girl, I supposed. I was thankful for it all, though.

There were many things that I wanted to learn now. There were many things that I wondered about in the limits of my own mind. Things such as people, how they lives, and their voices. For example, if Yumiko had a voice, I assumed that it would be strong. You could hear how brave she was just by the way she spoke. It'd be one of those feisty, excited voices. Just like she was.

If Hideyoshi had one, I assumed his would be pretty deep. Not too deep—just the right amount to hear the sincerity in his tone. It'd crack at times; he looked like the type of person to go through the occasional voice crack due to excitement. His laughs would be loud, obnoxious, and dangerously contagious. Just like his appearance.

If Kaneki had a voice, I thought it to be very . . . controlled. Not too loud, not too quiet. Not too deep, more on the higher side, but not too high. It'd be steady. It'd just be . . . somewhere in the middle. I pictured, unlike Hideyoshi, his voice wouldn't crack, having been soft at all times. Just like he seemed to be.

They each had their own little personalities and quirks. I wouldn't be ashamed to admit that I had been trapped inside of my own bubble for so long that I had hardly paid any attention to things beside myself. However, now that I had a growing experience with others, and examples of individuality, I was beginning to learn that things were more vibrant than they cracked up to be.

We wasted about an hour and a half in that cafe. Hideyoshi sure proved that he was an English major, writing down whole paragraphs of their childhood stories so that I could read them. Then, he'd sit patiently and gauge my laughter as I read them. He was an endearing person, and conversation came easy to him, apparently. Even if it was a conversation on paper.

Kaneki had been focused on the window. He sipped his coffee in silence, watching as people outside walked to and fro. The neon signs outside had reflected off of his gray eyes at one point; he didn't make any move to block them out. He was off in La La Land, Hideyoshi explained to me, and went on to tell me that throughout the entire time they've known each other, he'd been known to do that from time to time. I could do nothing but nod and leave the boy to his own thoughts.

Finally, when our coffees were gone, Hideyoshi's snacks were finished off, and our fingertips were growing cold due to the lateness in the night, we headed out. Not that it was any warmer outside.

The moon hung high in the sky, reflecting thousands of tiny stars for my wandering eyes. I gazed up at them in appreciation. While I may have been experiencing a ton of new things, it was sort of comforting to know that I'd always be looking up at the same sky. Maybe my mother was watching them, too, back at home. Maybe even _that man_ . . . wherever he was these days.

The amount of people eon the streets had dwindled down to a small number. Most of them had retreated indoors for obvious reasons. Those who were left, like us, were most likely heading home. I pulled my long sleeved shirt closer around me as I watched a mother drag her two children home. They were bickering about something I couldn't make out, not paying attention to her pleading. Hopefully, the three of them would make it home all right.

Hideyoshi nodded his head toward the direction from which we'd came to get to the cafe. He was ready to get home. The insane amounts of caffeine in his system had brought him back into the studying mood. But, I shook my head, and the two of them looked down at me with furrowed brows. They were confused on why I wasn't planning on walking back with them.

I wrote down a note to clarify things. **'I'd better stop by the store before I head home. I need new school supplies.'**

Kaneki reached out a hand as if asking for the notebook. I passed him the pen and paper, watching as he wrote down a message. The light from the Anteiku sign was enough for us to see the message that he held up moments later.

' **Do you want us to come with you?'**

Hideyoshi took the notebook from him with a nod, writing down, **'Yeah, it's not safe at night for women. For anyone, really.'**

I shook my head. While I appreciated the kind gestures, I've used up enough of the two boys' time. They had studying to do, and it wasn't fair of me to hold them up any longer. Besides, there wasn't anything that could happen that I couldn't handle. I handled myself back in my little village town, I could handle myself here. Tokyo shouldn't have been any different.

Hideyoshi held up a new sign. **'Well, all right. If you're sure. Just watch out for monsters.'**

My brows furrowed in the center. _Monsters? What monster was he talking about?_

Kaneki made a face as if to let me know that he was exaggerating. But, that didn't stop Hideyoshi from going on. He quickly wrote something else on the paper. His hands were working so fast that they were almost nothing but a blur.

' **You know,'** his writing read. **'Ghouls. They could be anywhere.'**

 _Oh._

My eyes went wide. He was the only person besides my family that I've heard bring them up. The people who fed on people. The people of an entirely different species, but blended in with us as if they were us. The mention of them had caught me off guard.

Hideyoshi made an attempt at a scary face, motioning with his hands to signify claws. Beside him, Kaneki shook his head, nudging him with his elbow.

I sighed. They were only trying to look out for a woman. Wasn't that the polite thing for a man to do? Still, the thought of ghouls was sort of an extreme case, wasn't it? I haven't even heard of a ghoul attack in a while.

I waved them off with a smile. **'I'll be fine.'**

Hideyoshi wrote something down, then shrugged. **'If you say so.'**

We parted ways after that. With our goodbyes in orders and empty promises of seeing each other around campus in the following days, they went to the right, and I went to the left. I pulled my sleeves up so they wouldn't engulf my hands with a sigh. The faster I walked the faster I could get back home. It was also the faster I could get to studying, which only served to make me want to slow down.

Luckily for me, there was a store not too far from the cafe. About a block away, I assumed. Its sign was flashing on and off, one of the light bulbs dying, but it didn't make it appear any less friendly. A little sign on the window told me that they were thirty minutes away from closing. Just in time. I quickly walked inside and felt the warmth radiating from the indoors.

There were hardly people inside. There were a few younger people, college students by the looks of it, purchasing pens and pencils. There were a couple older people walking around on their phones. The cashier himself seemed a little older, eyes half-lidded as he waited for someone—anyone—to ring up.

I walked through the aisles until I found the notebook section. The notebook that I was using to communicate with people in was beginning to run out of pages. It was the only way to converse with people who didn't know sign language, and since I was making acquaintances, it would be a good idea to pick up a few more. I had even considered a dry erase board once, but the thought of walking through the streets carrying it seemed to scream: _Hey, look at me! I'm different from everyone else!_

I settled on a white spiraled notebook and a purple one. Two would've been enough for now. Besides, I didn't bring too much money with me tonight for more. Not that I wanted to admit it, but staying by yourself in college meant that my budget was a little tight around the edges.

The cashier was slow in ringing me up. He seemed beyond tired. Glasses slipping down his face and yawning every ten seconds, he dragged everything on longer than needed. Even his name tag was hanging on by a thread . . . literally. He gave me a sleepy nod when I pointed to it to let him know it was falling off.

The next stop was back to the apartment building. Thankfully, I remembered which ways Hideyoshi went to bring us here, so I shouldn't have had any trouble trying to get home. It was pretty simple. Hit three corners, walk across four streets, and hit another corner.

On the way home, though, I did run into someone. Or, to be exact, they ran into me. A man in a black trench coat had bumped into me when he tried to round a corner. Luckily, neither of us fell. His brown eyes had went wide and he tipped his black hat in an apology. I could do nothing but smile since I couldn't hear what he was saying.

He said something to me. His lips were moving too fast for me to read, so I couldn't really respond with anything. I simply nodded, bowed, and continued my journey back to the apartment. It wasn't an unusual occurrence, after all. Sometimes it was easier to let them think I understood than having to explain everything.

And there it was. The apartment complex stood high and mighty as if welcoming me back home. I let out a happy sigh, wanting to get back to my more comfortable clothing. I even had a little pep in my step as I walked up the stairs.

Like I told the two boys, nothing bad happened and nothing bad was going to happen. I had made it home safe and sound without a single concern. It didn't matter whether I was a girl, or whether ghouls existed.

 _But, those who think like that . . . usually end up being struck by misery, don't they?_

* * *

 **Fun Fact of the Chapter: Nana is 162 centimeters tall.**


	4. Supportiveness

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul. It belongs to its rightful owners.**

* * *

 **CHAPTER THREE: SUPPORTIVENESS**

 **NANA**

 **"Give freely to the world these gifts of love and compassion."**

— **Steve Maraboli**

* * *

 **'YES, I'M DOING okay, Mom.'**

After sending the email to my mother, I had accidentally let out a louder sigh than I intended to. While it was the truth, I was actually doing _okay_ , it was a complete lie as well. I wasn't doing _fine_. There was a difference. I was losing it, for a lack of a better term. Bad things were starting to catch up with me, and my stress migraines were getting too hard to ignore.

Across the table, Yumiko gave me a sympathetic look. She of all people knew how things were starting to upset me lately. She had even been the one to invite me out for lunch today, hoping the change in atmosphere would help stall my worries.

But, it only made me stand out that much more. She was wearing a pretty, white, flowery top with shorts; I was wearing a black hoodie with the hood thrown over my head. She sported a gold bag as an accessory. I was sporting actual bags under my eyes. It was a big contrast . . . especially with our added newcomer.

' **Aw, don't worry about it, Nana. You didn't do _that_ bad.'**

Beside Yumiko, Hideyoshi held up a sign for me to read, thick brows tilting upward in the middle, and a kind smile on his lips. Even _he_ was wearing a yellow t-shirt and shorts. And while he always dressed in colors bright enough to rival the stars, I had been kind of hoping he'd be on the darker side of the spectrum at least once to match with me. But, that wasn't the case. I was the only negative one there.

Things had been going fine up until about two days ago. After receiving Kaneki's notes, I'd been studying for an entire week and a half to get a good grade on my Japanese Literature quiz. I'd been hyped on caffeine for eleven days. _Eleven days._ I'd go to school, then go straight back home in hopes of sending my mother good news about the first test I'd ever took in university.

However, on the morning of the test, I'd bounded into class prepared for anything. At least, I thought I was. I'd been studying the suggested books the whole time, and not the mandatory one. I had totally bombed the test. I was talking about a thirty out of one hundred in the final score. It was _humiliating_. All of that studying and money spent on coffee for nothing.

I'd been upset about it ever since then. I wasn't mad or anything like that, just disappointed in myself. Kaneki had even tried to help me get a good score, and I blew it. How could you possibly fail a test that you had help on?

Yumiko had picked up on the fact that I had been wearing all black for two days in a row. I didn't feel like wearing yellows, or pinks, and even greens for that matter. All I wanted was to go to school and go back home. Of course, my redheaded friend wouldn't have that. She had pulled me aside while I was on my way to my abnormal psychology class claiming that she was taking me to go get lunch. We'd ran into Hideyoshi on the way, who asked where we were going, and eventually decided to tag along since he didn't have class again until later.

It was how I ended up ditching my fourth class of the day to eat with the two of them. I didn't mind it—I needed a break, anyways—but, I wasn't expecting an intervention in the middle of lunch. At least, not from _these two._

Hideyoshi waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention. Blinking a few times, my gaze traveled from the table to his eyes. When my purple ones met his brown ones, he shivered, cringing at the intensity of them. I hadn't meant to give him such a look. I guessed it was just how I felt these days.

Yumiko shook her head, and wrote down in bold print, **'Okay, this has to stop.'**

' **What has to stop?'** I had replied.

She made a face, holding up her new sign. **'Nana, you've been stuck in your apartment for who knows how long now. You barely want to hang out anymore. All you do is go to school wearing over-sized, black hoodies and go home. You're a psychology major; you should know what the hell is going on.'**

Hideyoshi took the notebook and pen from her, his mouth forming the letter 'O' as he revealed his writing. **'Is this depression?'**

I deadpanned. **'I'm not depressed, Hide.'**

That was far from what I was feeling. I was just . . . stuck in a rut. If I was already failing so early on into the school year, what was going to happen later on? Sure, the reason I failed was because I didn't follow directions. Still, who was to say that wouldn't happen again. Everyone told me not to get too comfortable during my first year of university because it was easy to get lost. That was exactly what I did. Now, I'm stuck like this.

I placed my forehead on the table with another sigh. I'd been sighing a lot these past two days. It'd take twice the amount of studying to get my grade back up in that class. Twice the amount of reading, twice the amount of work, twice the amount of under eye bags and sleepless nights. If I knew it would be this hard, I would've stayed in Karuizawa.

But, things weren't expected to go smooth sailing all of the time. I knew that something would happen eventually. I was just feeling discouraged because it happened so soon. We were two days into the third week of school, and I already had a big, fat, 'F' on my grades. It wasn't the most pleasant thing to see for someone just starting to live on their own. It was irresponsibility at it's finest.

Yumiko tapped on the back of my head. I lifted it up, dull eyes reading the note she was holding up. It made me sigh again for about the fortieth time that afternoon.

' **You're just lacking motivation is all! You're being too hard on yourself. Use it as fuel to come back better for the next test!'**

The thought of the next test wasn't encouraging in the slightest. It just meant more hard work. It wasn't that I had a problem with working hard. It was just that my hard work still led to fails, it seemed.

Hideyoshi offered a kind smile as he held up the next message. **'Let's go, Nana! Go, go, Nana! ╰(✧∇✧╰)'**

At that, I let out a bark of laughter. He included the little cute face and all of the above. It made it that much better, especially since we weren't text, but actually writing. The little doodles of stars and sparkles around it added to the cuteness. Sometimes it was hard to believe this guy was seven months older than me.

Hearing the sudden sound made the two smile. They'd gotten me to crack with silly drawings and faces. My hand shot up to hide away the smile tugging at my lips. But, it was too late. They had already seen it. They were going to run with it now.

' **See?'** Yumiko had wrote to me. **'Don't you feel a little better? Surrounding yourself with friends will do that.'**

She had a point. The two of them always got me to smile doing the simplest things throughout the time we've known each other. Especially Hideyoshi, who was so sincere in everything he did that it showed through. Yumiko had even ordered me a sandwich against my protests. They were kind people who hardly conversed with people outside of their social group. And once you were in . . . you were in for a _lot_ more than being pals.

Maybe I was wrong for hiding myself away. After getting my score, I should have went to someone to talk about my troubles with instead of letting them bottle up. Maybe I should have gone out for fresh air instead of cooping up in my apartment. Maybe I should have ate something nice, hung out with Yumiko, and caught up on the rest that I missed out on. Maybe I had came about this thing with the completely wrong approach.

Maybe I should have talked to my mother instead of lying about it. She would have rather heard the truth than shitty lies about how I'm not beating myself up for my wasted studying. She would have told me to do better on the next one—that this one wasn't a big deal. I could recover my grade from this still since it was so early on in the school year. But, I just _had_ to seclude myself, and cutting off the good energy just made more room for the bad ones to manifest.

Perhaps I should go back to Karuizawa during summer break. Not to stay—to see my mother and grandparents, and to take a break. Visiting home would remind me why I moved to Tokyo in the first place. It'd make me more grateful for being here and remind me not to give up so soon. That, and I've missed the hot springs. _Oh, how I missed the hot springs._

But, for now, I had reasons to not quit. I still wanted to be a psychologist. I still wanted to do everything that I haven't done. I want to make more friends, see more of the city, experience university, and make long lasting memories. It's only been two weeks. I can't let the world beat me down so soon.

I raised a hand to take the hood off of my head. My hair was sticking up in different places, for sure, so I finger combed the strands to make sure they stayed down. That was all that it took for Hideyoshi and Yumiko to clap for my change in attitude. The hood was off, and it felt like a new beginning to a winding down story.

People around the little food place began to stare at us because of their clapping. All of the sudden attention had stained my cheeks pink, and I put a finger to my lips to tell the two to quiet down. That in itself was ironic enough. I couldn't even hear their clapping, yet I knew they were making enough noise to cause a disturbance.

Yumiko wrote another note. **'The witch has rose from the dead.'**

Hideyoshi covered his mouth to hide the fact that he was laughing. I shot the redheaded girl another deadpanned face. She was dramatic as always. Though, I had to smile, too. Maybe _I_ was being the dramatic one this time.

' **Thank you guys for the pep talk,'** I had wrote for them. **'And thanks for the sandwich.'**

Yumiko smirked. **'That sandwich wasn't free. You've gotta pay me back by not being so hard on yourself.'**

Hideyoshi nodded in agreement. They were both such kind people . . . I felt my eyes stinging as they began to water. The only people to ever be this nice to me were my own family. Not even my friends throughout high school were this concerned. It was a first for me, to have people care about whether you stressed or not. It didn't matter that we've known each other for a little over two weeks, or that half of that had been spent with me locking myself away, a person was a person. They saw me as a person who needed a pick-me-up. It was . . . unexpected.

Their eyes went wide at the threatening tears. I wasn't going to cry, but I felt like it. There was a feeling of happiness that washed over me. Along with motivation, it was rare for me to feel that from people I didn't share blood with.

I wrote down a message, smiling with wet eyes as I showed them. **'I won't. Thank you.'**

Yumiko winked while Hideyoshi choked on his drink. I guessed my genuine smile had caught him off guard. It was a smile that turned into laughter when Yumiko began to hit him on the back, helping him to keep breathing. I read her lips; she told him that he was "such a boy." Though I didn't know what she meant by that, I found it funny how he swatted her hands to get away from him.

We finished the food while engrossed in conversation. Yumiko told of how she had befriended enough professors to wind her name up on the dean's list. Hideyoshi simply argued that she was the kind of person to talk her way through a successful bank robbery. If she were to graduate it would definitely because she hangs around the teacher's lounge in her spare time. She waved her fist at him, and I laughed because every bit of what he said was the truth.

But, he wasn't without scrutiny, too. They apparently shared an English class in the Department of International Studies. He was notorious for sleeping through lessons whenever the teacher got to lecturing. It wasn't that he was uninterested, he told us, for he was very interested in school. He just always went to bed too late. Doing what, he wouldn't say, but he managed to keep his grades good despite all of that. At the mention of grades, I sent the boy a playful glare.

I also learned that his hair was naturally that color. His roots always grew in dark before lightening to a blond-orange when it got long enough to hit the sunlight. Yumiko and I had assumed that he bleached his hair not too often enough. He pretended to be offended, saying he couldn't help his genetics. Though, like I said, Hideyoshi can pull off anything, so it wasn't a bad thing. It was just unique.

And after an hour of getting to know each other, it was time to go back to school. Yumiko had already managed to get me to ditch my abnormal psychology class. I couldn't miss my organic chemistry one, too. That wasn't exactly the kind of class one wanted to miss. Besides, Hideyoshi had his own class to get to, and Yumiko had to assist the teachers before three o'clock. Just like that, our break was over.

We split off in different directions when we got back to school. I made sure to tell them goodbye and another thank you for their pep talks. They had opened my eyes again. They returned the excitement back to school. I'd show them that I could pass this year without giving up. That was all that Yumiko asked of me, after all.

My next class was my second to last class for the day. It was on the first floor in the Department of Medicine. I wasn't originally going to take it, opting for a normal general chemistry class, but most of them had been filled. It wasn't too bad, anyways. A lot of the students in there were older, thus it was quieter, and less crowded.

I walked in a few minutes early as usual. Surprisingly, the back rows were already starting to fill out. The same couldn't have been said for the front ones. Students were choosing to sit in the back rows rather than the other way around. It was harder to see from back there; there weren't rows of seats, but individual labs that seated up to two people.

A lot of them were trying to sit with their friends. I supposed how all of it started. One group decided to it in the back, and people who knew them decided to sit around them. Nearly all the back labs were blocked off. Not that I was complaining. I hiked my bag further up my shoulder and marched over to the second row of labs. It was a difference than always sitting in the front.

In my time here, I had come to realize that this class was very . . . sectioned off. The freshman sat in one area. The sophomores sat in another. The juniors and seniors tended to snatch the back end and seclude themselves from everyone else. They "didn't want to socialize with children." However, by having that mindset, they didn't prove that they were much older. Mentally, anyway.

I picked the seat closest to the window. If I strained my eyes enough, I could see the construction workers placing in the new cherry blossoms. They had started a few days ago. Only a few of them left needed to be planted, but it was already a sight for sore eyes. The scattering of the pink petals really made it feel like April. Even if we _were_ trapped in our classes.

I hadn't noticed someone sit next to me. It wasn't until I saw something move out of the corner of my eye did I finally pay attention. My gaze moved from the window to the right side of me, wondering who my lab partner was going to be today. Usually it was someone different every time, and usually it was a boy who only wanted to sit by me to talk to their friends. Or if they did want to talk, they'd become frustrated when I couldn't.

But, today was different. Today . . . it was a girl.

I couldn't tell how old she was. Very young, perhaps, and very beautiful. Her brown eyes were focused on getting her papers together. Short, shoulder-length red-brown hair tucked behind one ear, and blunt cut bangs, she was someone I hadn't recognized. It was unknown to me how, though. While she looked like your average pretty girl, she still had this air about her that made you want to look. Perhaps she just transferred into this class from another one.

She glanced over at me while I was looking. I had been trying to figure out if I had ever seen her before. But, she caught me, and no doubt I looked like a creep in that instant. Surprisingly, instead of being suspicious of me, she smiled and waved. I did the same since she looked nice enough.

The professor for this class was a man in his elderly years. He was a bit on the plumper side with a round stomach tucked behind his gray button-up shirt. Wire-rimmed glasses sat in front of his squinted brown eyes. Gray hair stuck up all over the place, matching his thick mustache and making him look somewhat like a mad scientist. It was fitting for a chemistry class.

The interpreter was one that I had only encountered in this class. It was a man who appeared in his twenties. Slicked down black hair and bold black eyes, he looked like he was a student in his fourth year. I supposed he had taken up being an interpreter as intern experience. Nonetheless, his hand movements were a bit slow, and I appreciated it since Mrs. Mitsukuri tended to sign like her life depended on it. Especially when it got later into the class.

The professor always wrote on the chalkboard in large letters. My guess was that since he had trouble seeing—which he often vocalized to us about for twenty minutes at a time—he was doing it to be considerate of others who needed glasses. That or he couldn't see the board himself. Either way, it made things easier for us to see, so I didn't complain one bit.

He went on to explain cell division and compounds. More specifically carbon compounds. Carbon compounds other than simple salts like oxides and carbides. I would admit that it was interesting . . . for all of ten minutes. Everything after that had been spoken while I stared at the clock, wondering when the class would end. I was all for the world of science and things of the like, but lectures weren't exactly too exciting.

Still, I jogged down notes and doodles to help me remember things. I drew out pictures of the single bonds and multiple bonds that were on the board. Bullet points with information on organic hybridization were written next to them as helpful reminders.

He kept mentioning helium, elections, and orbitals so many times that everything was starting to blur together. I had wrote everything do without paying attention, hoping that the notes would help me get a better understanding when I was at home. It wasn't a smart thing to do. Honestly, it was probably the reason why I ended up failing my other test, but I had agreed not to give up, not to change my habits. At least, not today while I still looked so gloomy.

My eyes glanced up to the clock hanging above the professor's head. Already the chalkboard was filled with structures, bonds, and notes. My page had even been flipped to the backside to make room for more. But, only ten minutes had passed, and another fifty remained. It felt like thirty, yet it wasn't even half of that. Just my luck.

I suddenly felt bad for the young interpreter. He must have been growing tried of signing every little thing the teacher said. You could only sign about helium so many times before it started to get annoying. I knew that from experience. Still, I was grateful for his help, making sure to semi-pay attention so that his efforts wouldn't be wasted.

The first electron that goes into the first orbital has a half spin upward while the second election has a half spin downward. He tried to make a joke about the orbitals being shape like donuts as he drew them around the nucleus. I had looked around to see if anyone laughed at it. Everyone was staring at him in boredom, all except for a boy in the back of the class who seemed to actually be giggling at the phone he was hiding under the table. The professor didn't notice, though, and gave him a thumbs up for thinking that he was funny. Poor guy.

Halfway through the class, he called everything to a halt. I raised an eyebrow as I glanced at the interpreter for an explanation. The lecture was over, he told me, and the last thirty minutes of class were going to be dedicated to working. It wasn't unusual for him to hand us worksheets that were due at the end of class. I had expected it to be one of those, but it wasn't, for he wrote on the board in large font: **FIND A PARTNER.**

 _Oh, boy . . ._

We were going to have a project. A two page essay about the compound of our choice—we had to explain what it was, why it was that way, how it was made up, where we could find it, and when it could be used. Who it involved, though, was up to us. We had to pick one person in the class to split the essay up with . . . the essay that was due next week. _Next week_. Not only did we have to work together with someone on an essay, we had a week to do it. I was suddenly glad that I half-assed took all of those notes.

The class broke off to gather into their groups. People got up out of their seats to meet friends that were across the classroom. The people in front of us turned to each other with smiles. They were obviously going to work together. They were already friends, so why wouldn't they have? They weren't subjects of an awkward situation like I was.

While I was all for meeting new people, partnering up for projects weren't really my forte. I always had trouble doing it in high school. There were so many different types of scholars. There were some that sat back waiting for me to do all of the work. There were some that didn't want me to do anything, preferring control over a collaboration. There were some that goofed off, some that were serious, some that did everything in the last minute, some that wrote a load of crap pretending like they knew what they were talking about, and so much more. It was sometimes hard to tell who was which.

However, before I could go off looking for a decent person, the girl next to me turned to look in my direction. Her hair danced around her shoulders as she tilted her head with a gentle smile. The earring in her exposed ear sparkled from the sunlight shining in from the window. I had guessed what she was going to say, but I didn't want to assume. For all I knew, she could've been telling me goodbye so she could leave.

Her mouth moved to speak. Of course, no words came out, and I found myself furrowing my brows in attempt to read her lips. They had moved too fast for me to understand despite being so close. I had no clue what she was trying to say to me. So, I pointed my index finger to my ear, shaking my head to let her know that I couldn't hear her.

She nodded to let me know she understood. This time, her lips moved slower. _That's fine_ , was what she had said. She pointed a polished finger to the project on the board, then motioned between us. She wanted to know if I wanted to be her partner. She must have been a first-year, too, since the sophomores usually stuck together in their own social cliques.

I nodded in agreement. She seemed nice, and the entire time throughout the lecture she was taking notes. Not once did her attention waver from trying to understand the material. She was the kind of person that worked hard in group projects, the kind of person everyone ran to in order to get a good grade. I got that much from how her notebook was well into the later pages . . . unlike mine. She had taken down a lot of information, and I was happy to apply that information to a good grade with her.

 _My grades are starting to look up, aren't they?_

I wrote my name down on a piece of paper for her. I still didn't know who she was, and she didn't know who I was. If we were going to be working together, communication was a must, even if it was through paper.

She wrote her name down in response. Nishino Kimi, it was, written in forward slanted kanji. People who tended to write like that were often affectionate, sympathetic, honest, and kind. It made sense since it was the initial vibe that I got from her. They were also independent and intelligent. Just the kind of thing I needed in a partner.

We discussed what we wanted to do the project on. There were a ton of compounds to choose from, and the more intricate ones were sure to get us a higher score. But, we had to figure out if we were willing to risk getting things wrong for a higher grade. There was also the fact that there would be more research involved with more complicated compounds, meaning less time for our other classes.

In the end, we decided on one of the simpler ones. It was the safer route, but it was better to be safe than sorry. The girls in front of us had decided to pick one of the more difficult ones. The taller one of the pair didn't seem too confident about it from the way she wrote down ideas on their paper. I hoped that both of them got a good score in the end.

Then, there was the subject of presenting it. The professor wrote on the board that each essay will not only be split as far as in writing, but they will be split in reading, too. Every pair had to come to the front of the class to read their essays out loud. He said that since they were only two pages long, that was a page per student, and we could wrap everything up in less than a week. I'm sure the class groaned even if I couldn't hear them.

The thing was, I wouldn't be able to present it. At least, not without embarrassing myself in the process. I had wrote a note explaining that to Kimi, not minding if she decided to go to another partner because of it. It would either be embarrassing, or she'd be stuck with doing most of the speaking. It was bad either way, so I couldn't blame her.

The note that she wrote back was completely unrelated to what I said. **'Do you know sign language?'**

I nodded. I knew it like the back of my hand, and most of my mother's side of the family did as well. However, I couldn't really tell where she was going with all of this. Then, it hit me, and my eyes went wide with realization.

' **Do you think you could say in in sign language while I say it?'** she wrote to me.

It was an amazing idea. It was a way for both of us to say it without any hints of inconvenience on either end. The interpreter would probably like it, too, since it would give him a break from having to do everything for a moment. The language barrier would be broken. I would be the interpreter, she would be the person giving the speech, and it would work out fine. All that was left was to see how the professor would react to it. Hopefully, he would understand.

We split the directions in half to divide evenly among the two of us. She was going to be covering the what, when, and where. I was going to be covering the how, and why along with combining the two sections into one at the end. She seemed pretty satisfied with the agreement. It'd require an equal amount of studying, an equal amount of time, and an equal amount of effort. Now, we just needed to do it.

Kimi made sure that I had received her email before anything else. That way, we would be able to contact each other in case there was something that we needed to discuss. Whether that be the due date, the subject, or checking up on how the other was doing with the project, communication was a key element in a partnership, so I was more than happy to give her mine as well. We had typed the addresses into each other's phones; hers was newer than my old model. Still, I was excited at the thought of someone actually wanting to work on a project.

After class started off as nothing too different than every other day. My next class was personality psychology, dealing with the varying personalities among individuals and _why_ they acted the way they did. It was in the same building as my general psychology class next to the Department of Pharmacy. It wasn't too far. In fact, it was faster to walk over there than any other class, simply because it was filled with older students and they preferred not to crowd the hallways before lectures.

However, while it started off normal, it didn't stay that way for long. I was already getting used to the fact that I was going to have to contact Kimi a lot more frequently now—including the fact that I had even _met_ her today—so anymore disruptions were completely unprecedented. Especially the disruptions that came in the form of people I already knew.

My eyes had glanced out of the window on the way out of the building, hoping to get a glimpse at the new cherry blossoms, when someone caught my eye instead. Standing beyond the glass was a boy, not too tall, and more on the thinner side underneath his olive green hoodie. Brown strands blew against his face from the spring wind blowing around outside. With thin fingers typing quickly into his phone, it would've been hard to tell who it was had it not been for the gleam in his green eyes. It was none other than Hiroto Anzai.

He was Yumiko's friend—the one who worked in the restaurant during his spare time. He was the so-called genius who could speak sign language like he grew up deaf himself. It took me a moment to recognize him outside of his work clothes—we'd only met once while he was working. Nonetheless, eyes were always a dead giveaway, and I rapped my knuckles against the glass to get his attention.

He glanced up with wide eyes. Fingers froze against the keypad of his phone, he turned his head to look at the window as if he had saw a ghost. I waved to him in attempt to let him know that I was friendly. Eventually, he did the same, walking over to meet me at the slightly opened window.

" _So, you go to this school, too?"_ he signed to me.

I opened the window a little more and nodded. _"Yes. How have you been?"_

He ran a hand through his hair, then. The light brown strands were forced away from his face, allowing me to see the little hairs crowding around his hairline. Once he removed his hand, his bangs flopped back against his forehead, far more messier than they were in the first place.

" _I've been all right,"_ he signaled. _"You look a lot more . . . down in the dumps since the last time I saw you."_

The last time I saw Anzai, I wasn't in school very long, and still enthusiastic about learning. He had saw me before my Japanese Literature class went downhill. Of course he had caught me in the moment between giving up and being re-inspired. I was still wearing a baggy, black hoodie, and my hair was still wild. I couldn't blame him for noticing so quickly.

I shook my head, propping my elbows up on the windowsill. _"I was bummed out about a test, but I've decided not to be so hard on myself anymore."_

" _That's good. That's the only way that you'll make it through college. Believe me, I've been here for years."_

I smiled at the fact that even _he_ was trying to encourage me. _"Thanks for the advice,"_ I had replied. _"How about you? What are you majoring in?"_

He shrugged. _"Technology. I'm pretty good with computers."_

I noticed. He seemed very into his cellphone a minute ago. Yumiko _did_ say he was a smart kid, after all.

I should have guessed, but then again, it wasn't always safe to assume things.

" _I'm actually done for the day,"_ he signed to me next. _"I have to go pick up food for my mother on the way home, too."_

I nodded. _"Sure. I'll see you around."_

His hands danced around in their own form of goodbye. With his phone in one hand and his bag in the other, he started for the school gates. I had to give it to him, despite trying to do so many things at once, he had the right attitude about life. He was trying to stay positive. If he, someone who has been in university for double the amount of time that I have, could remain that way, why couldn't I?

So, I was going to have to give it my all. It was okay to lose track of things every now and then. As long as I found my way back to where I was supposed to be, there was no harm in it, right?

* * *

 **THERE WERE A** lot of things in life that people had to worry about. Whether it be money, family, or anything in the crevices between, there was always _something._ There were hardly days were thoughts of difficult situations didn't cross people's mind. Every hour, every minute, every second, there was someone out there having a hard time, and that was just something that we—as a whole—had to acknowledge. Everyone had their own slices of stress throughout their lives.

I was one of those people on the higher end of the spectrum. I had spent so many years listening, watching other's reactions since I couldn't voice my own, that it had become a second nature to me. I survived by intuition. I lived because of other people. I knew when to sad because others were sad; I had to gauge situations from the way other people felt. I was like a conductor for emotions since I could only react off of what I saw. And lately, I had been reflecting Kimi.

She was worried about the project that we had been given in our organic chemistry class. Or, more like, she was taking it far more serious than everyone else was. While most students coasted through with easy compounds that had been chosen a thousand times over by students in the morning class, she put her head forward for the most rewarding grade possible. I admired her for it. However, I had also picked up on her secondhand stress for something that I had considered not too bad when it was given.

I had spent the next few days trying to catch up with my general psychology class as well as gathering notes for the project. There were a few things left that I needed, but the main ideas were down. Two days after it was given, all that was left for me to do was to write my ideas down onto paper. Easier said that done, of course; it was the process that took the longest to do. I didn't really have away with words, be it written or spoken, so I had put it off until further into the week.

Yet, Kimi didn't dare do the same. Every time I saw her in class, she was reading some book thick enough to rival a thesaurous for information. She was dedicated to getting her degree, unlike me, who was struggling to accept my bad grade after the first two weeks. Seeing her sitting in her seat before I even got a chance to, nose buried in a book as she took down notes, was enough motivation to kick my efforts into high gear. I started writing the paper four days before it was due.

She brought me her half of the project two days before it was supposed to be turned in. It gave me more than enough time to get things done; I was grateful that she hadn't crammed all of her little details into the last moment. Those days I had spent on my apartment floor, my hair in a ponytail, forcing my fingers to write even when they didn't want to anymore. Yumiko had initially thought that I was still upset about the test, and continuing to hole up by myself. But, rather, I was simply being a college student studying too hard for a social life.

And when the day finally came, our struggles were not fruitless. Kimi's idea of speaking and using sign language at the same time to present together had landed us high up in the professor's ranks. He had called it something along the lines of being innovative, at least that was what Kimi told me, and made a reminder for himself to give us extra credit. Kimi was happy about it, and so was I, seeing as how I didn't get another bright red F in the grading roster.

For many years, my usage of sign language had kind of . . . drove people off. It was too big of a language barrier for people to try to overcome. They'd simply smile apologetically, shake their heads, and shrug, letting me know that they weren't going to even _attempt_ to understand. However, after our presentation, my sign language seemed like it was getting popular among the students in our classroom.

Multiple students had tried to take Kimi's seat next to me whenever she came later than I did. It wasn't really for the purpose of becoming my friend, but to partner up with me whenever the next organic chemistry project came. Even the third and fourth years had tried getting to know me. Everyone wanted their shot at extra credit, which I didn't blame them for. I suppose if I could hear I would've been the same way.

But, unfortunately for them, I had already made the decision to stick it out with Kimi. She was the first person in the class to reach out to me, after all. Her motivation for higher learning had inspired me to put my all into the project; she was how we got a good grade in the first place, not because of me. She was far more reliable and driven than I considered myself to me. It confused me why people were trying to pick me over her. She was the better partner, the better scholar, and cute to boot. If there was anyone that I was going to be partnering up with, I hoped that it would be her again.

Though the two of us had hardly spoke outside of school, she was always nice to me. She always welcomed me with bright eyes and a warm smile whenever I took my seat next to her. She explained to me that she was in her second year at this university, and that she was heavily studying medicine. She didn't tell me what she was majoring in. I assumed it had something to do with nursing, but sometimes assumptions weren't the right things to go off of.

To top it off, she had even given me the tip of studying in the library. Most students flocked to the library in search of something to help them boost their grades, especially since it was so early on in the semester. It was always too crowded for me to get anything done, so I avoided going whenever I could. But, Kimi had her own set of advice to give me. She said that it was better to study in the library in the morning—it was the quietest hours of the day. Everyone was either sleeping, dragging their feet looking for coffee, or just getting to school. The number of students of campus were lowered making it the perfect time to brush up on a few books.

I've been so caught up in schoolwork for the past week or so that I haven't been able to do much of anything lately. Being stuck in one room for that amount of time had the abilities to make anyone stir crazy. So, in late April, four days shy of May and the peak of spring, I took Kimi's advice by going into the library.

It had been early—a few hours before my general psychology class started with Yumiko. As Kimi had told me, there were hardly any students inside when I walked into the library. Rows upon rows of wooden bookshelves carrying old books decorated the wide room. There were two floors, both nothing but bookshelves, and a few computers open to the students willing to show their school identification cards. There were a few administrators lingering about as they picked up with their day. The librarian sat behind a counter typing away at her computer doing who knew what, a pile of books by her as she procrastinated putting them away. It was a lot smaller than the public library, but it was sure to have more material on the school things that I needed.

The library made me show her my card before I went further inside. It was a long struggle to figure out what she wanted, but after I pointed to my ear, she pointed to her own card, and I instantly knew what she was asking for. It was one of the more easier exchange. There were people out there who liked to pretend they didn't know what I was talking about. Fortunately, it was a library; she probably didn't want me talking anyway.

It smelled of books. Pages filled with ink printed words had their own distinct smell in their own right. It was a comforting scent, more or less. That paired with the calm atmosphere of the morning hours had made it something worth getting out of bed to see.

I had came to brush up on some studying, so naturally I grabbed a book on chemistry. The other two books I picked were works of Japanese literature. It was the class that gave me the hardest time. If there was any time to catch up on things that I had missed during the organic chemistry project, it'd be now. It was better to be safe than sorry, and in college, being sorry was never a good thing.

I had flocked to the second floor and sat down at an empty wooden table. It was shaped in a large rectangle, three chairs on each side, so I sat on the side facing the window. Outside, small birds bounded from tree to tree, dancing in the cherry blossoms that they had finished installing not too long ago. It definitely added to the scenery. That, I couldn't fight the administration on; it made having to take a construction detour to class every day worthwhile.

I noticed that there were a few other students around as I studied. Most of them had their own noses buried into their books. Some were loitering around, pretending to search the shelves for books while they waited for class to begin. Some were simply on their phones at the tables, not bothering to educate in the early mornings at all. There were even some students who were balancing a healthy mix of both. Deciding that it wasn't good to watch people, I busied myself with taking notes.

Kimi was right when she said it was a great time to come to the library. It was as if she had spoken from experience when she let me in on the secret. It most likely was; she was smart herself so I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that she frequented here often. Perhaps she was one of the students who came earlier than I did. She was in her second year of university like Yumiko; I had found out in class through means of handwriting that she was only nineteen-years-old. People in their second-year tended to know a lot more about the school regardless of only being here a year before the first-years.

The second year students were a breed all their own. They didn't exactly fit in with the older classes, yet they didn't really mesh with the freshmen, either. They were their own species with their own way of living. They were so different, so unique, that whenever I met one, I loved to hear about the little stories that they had to tell. They knew things that we didn't. They adapted to newer things that the third and fourth-years didn't. They were like older siblings in a sense, and I was sure if I had one, they'd be as helpful as Yumiko and Kimi.

I had been studying so intently through the chemistry book. The notebook beside me was filled with doodles and scribbles to help me remember key elements and compounds. Some of the things I recognized on the class syllabus, so I went over them to not be caught off guard when they came up in later weeks. It was a technique that I had learned from my neighbor, actually. I always caught glimpses of him studying things that he didn't need to, so I picked up the habit since his grades were better than mine, anyways.

My hair had been shielding my face since I was so deep into the book. Despite that, I still saw something move beyond the dark strands. I tilted my head up to see, my straight across bangs falling back against my forehead, and went wide eyed at the sight in front of me. It wasn't what I saw. It was _who_ I saw.

 _Speak of the devil and he shall arrive._

The eyes that I saw in front of me were a steel gray, dark around the edges and bright around the center. Long lashes, black brows, and black bangs hanging directly above them. If it weren't for the dark hair, I wouldn't assumed it was a snowman by how pale he was. But, his hair was black, and I instantly recognized the person in front of me as Kaneki.

His eyes went as wide as mine did. He was shocked to see me, too, just like every other time we ran into each other. It seemed like we always turned up in the places we expected least. I didn't know why I hadn't expected him, though. He loved books, and this was a library. It only made sense.

Still, it had been a while since I'd even _talked_ to him. We shared a class and an apartment building. Other than that, there was hardly any other contact made. We walked into the same literature classroom everyday around ten o'clock. However, since the day I returned his notebook to him, we haven't sat next to each other. There was always someone sitting in the two seats between us throughout the lecture—far too many people to engage in conversation.

Sometimes we'd wave to each other at best. Passing each other in the hallway with polite smiles was the most that I had gotten out of him in days; maybe a toothy grin if I caught him leaving his apartment. I was glad that he made an effort to acknowledge me regardless. It was less of a sting, we'd both been too busy to presue anything past classmates. Becoming friends was near impossible when we had a quiz every other week.

I lifted my hand to wave at him. The friendly gesture cleared away his shock, and he tilted his head to return the wave. At least we had said hello to each other.

My gaze fitted back down to the book in front of me. Diagrams of elements and compounds filled the pages. Some were colored, some were labeled, but they all required a steady eye to analyze what they were trying to say. If one were to try to study without at least going over the bullet points on the previous page, they would've easily gotten confused. It was how they suckered students into reading the whole book. You _had_ to. So, I leaned forward to get more studying done.

But, of course, not without sneaking a glance up at Kaneki.

The first thing that I noticed was the amount of books he had with him. There were only two, but they were two titles that I recognized. The first one was one of the recommended books by our literature professor—one that he had tried to force us to read not too long ago. The second one was dark with worn pages as if it had been read more than a few times. The name 'Takatsuki Sen' was plastered on both the front and the sides. It was the author that he liked the best, he had told me once, and it showed in the book's condition.

He was reading the first book, well into the pages around the middle of it. He was taking notes with his right hand and turning pages with his left. Multitasking at its finest, of course, though coming from him, I shouldn't have been surprised. I glanced up to his eyes to see if he was actually reading the book or glimpsing over it for notes. But, I wished I hadn't.

I hadn't meant to do it with ill intentions. The urge to do it had struck at the worst possible time, and I gave into it. Hey say that curiosity kills the cat. This time, it embarrassed it, for the exact moment when I looked up at him, he looked up at me. Almost as instantly as our gazes met, they parted, looking back down at the table between us as if blaming it for what had happened.

And if that wasn't enough, my lips parted to let out a yawn I knew for a fact was verbal. He glanced back at me just as I covered my mouth with my hand. Me yawning must have been something he hadn't been expected. He stared at me in surprise for a moment before smiling in what I assumed to be a snicker. I hid my face in my hands to hide from the embarassment. How I had managed to make a fool of myself two times in a row was beyond me.

When I removed my hands from my face, there was a note in front of me on the table. A corner of Kaneki's notebook page had been torn out in the same size as the piece of paper on the table. It had came from him; the handwriting was a dead giveaway. Forcing down my reddening cheeks, I read over the note to see if he was going to tease me.

' **How long have you been here,'** was all that it said.

He must have taken my yawning as a sign of me being here for a long time. While it was true that I woke up earlier than usual to come here, I hadn't exactly been in the library for too long.

I dug through my bag to retrieve a pen of my own, replying, **'About forty minutes. I heard this is a good place to get some studying in. How about you, do you usually come here?'**

My hands slid the piece of paper back over to his side of the table. He finished reading the page he was on before he grabbed the paper, gray eyes scanning the words over. Then, he used his note-taking hand to write a response. He had to flip it over since the front had ran out of space, and if the conversation continued, he'd definitely need a new piece of paper entirely.

He gave the paper back to me. **'Yes, in the morning,'** it had said.

He tore off a new sheet of paper from his notebook. He knew that tiny piece wasn't going to do very much in terms of communication. It made me smile, though, since that meant he had more to talk to me about. I thought it'd be light since it had been a while since we've said anything to each other. But, that didn't seem the case, for he gave me the new sheet of paper next.

' **I heard from Hide about your test results,'** he wrote down.

I'm sure I groaned. It wasn't something pleasant to think about, especially when I was in the library trying to make up for that lost time. Leave it to Hide to go blabbing about something like that to Kaneki. He probably even told him I was depressed or something dramatic like that, which could be the reason why he hasn't been initiating any conversations with me lately. Perhaps Kaneki thought I needed time to myself to recollect things.

He waved me off as if to let me know that everything was fine. My reaction told him everything he needed to know. It was still a rough subject for me. At least until I make up that grade with the next test . . . whenever that was.

I scribbled down a new message, passing it to the taller boy. **'What did you get?'**

' **An A.'**

 _Of course he got an A._

I sighed as I returned the paper to him. **'Wow, why am I not surprised . . .'**

There was a part of me that thought that I was studying too hard for the wrong things. I had the drive to succeed, but my time management has always been terrible, even since I was a child. It was difficult for me to balance my classes in a way that allowed me to study for everything in my study sessions. I always wanted to do one subject over the other. In this case, he made me realize that I had been studying for chemistry this whole time and not Japanese Literature.

He smiled and shook his head, passing me the next note. **'You must be studying to get a good grade on the test next week, then.'**

 _What? What test was he talking about?_

' **There's a test next week?!'** I had wrote back, and I'm pretty sure I tore a hole through the paper from how bold I made the words.

He nodded in confirmation. He made it seem like it was the most obvious thing in the world. While it probably should have, I hadn't even considered that there would be another test coming up this soon. I had just been talked out of being bummed about the last one. If I bombed this one, too, who knew what would happen. It'd be a lot more than black hoodies and bags under my eyes, that's for sure.

I let out a groan and slammed my forehead on the table. _Just my luck._

Something tapped against my head. Letting out another defeated sigh, I lifted my head to see what it was. Kaneki had poked me with his pen to get my attention, a sympathetic smile on his face and the sheet of paper in his other hand. I took it from him without bothering to lift my head all of the way. However, when I read the pen strokes, I had to sit up straight in shock.

' **I can tutor you if you need the extra help.'**

Kaneki was just about the most hardworking student in that class. Granted he was a Japanese Literature major to begin with, his knowledge was worth gold in terms of help. There were about four other students who seemed to have their stuff together in that class, and I knew none of them. The fifth one had conveniently became my neighbor the moment I moved to Tokyo. Now, he was offering to help me fend off my second impending fail.

He had already gave me his notebook. He sacrificed his own studying for the sake of being a good person. He knew that my hearing had forced me to miss class for a few days. Even after he did all of that for me, I still failed the test. The last thing I wanted was for him to physically dedicate time to helping me only for me to fail again. It wasn't fair to him, and though I wanted to agree to it, it wasn't worth risking his grade, too.

I shook my head. **'You don't have to do that. You have your own classes. I'd just get in the way.'**

He then shook his head, too, his bangs dancing around his eyes as he passed the paper back. **'It's okay. I do it for Hide all the time.'**

Jeez, Hideyoshi must have told him that I was really beating myself up over the last grade. There was no way he was offering to do all of this _without_ knowing. He was simply trying to be a good person, which I knew he was, and I couldn't be anymore grateful for it. Especially for me, who had studied the wrong book on the last test in the first place.

Finally, I nodded in agreement. **'Okay, then. Please take care of me, Ken-san.'**

He then told me that calling him by his first name was fine. Hearing people his age call him by his last name was strange, he said, so I was more than welcome to just call him Kaneki. It didn't bother me one bit. I actually happened to think his first name was far more unique than his last.

With it now established that he was going to help me prepare for the next test, he closed the book he was reading before sliding it across the table to me. The title was one word: sunflowers. There was an old drawing of the yellow flower on the cover along with the author's name. I was never one to judge a book by its cover, but this one had a minimalistic appeal that instantly hooked me in.

I picked up the book and turned it around. The synopsis on the back told about a young girl whose mother died while they were on a picnic one day—hence the usage of the sunflowers. It was about her learning to get over death during the industrial revolution in Japan, or the Meiji period in other words. Set around the time of World War One, the pages were yellowing around the edges like our professor said. _How did he even find this book?_

Next, he gave me a new note. **'Read it. It should help you out a lot. The test is on character mentality diagnostics, so you should like this one since you're studying to become a psychologist. Maybe it'll even help with that, too.'**

I grinned. **'Easy peasy,'** I wrote, watching as he read it.

When he got done, though, he made a face. It was a cross between exasperation and a deadpan. Though I couldn't really come up with a name for it, I knew what he was trying to tell me. Something about knocking on wood, or something along those lines

' **On second thought . . .'** I quickly added in. **'I shouldn't jinx myself.'**

At that, he smiled. The rest of the page was filled up with pointers and good notes to take while I read the book. He told me that I should finish it by at least the end of the week if I want to have the best chances in getting an A. That way, I still had time left over to do an analysis and diagnose the characters. I made sure to tell him that I understood what he was trying to tell me. I also thanked him close to a thousand times, and he waved me off for each of them. If that wasn't patience, I didn't know what was.

It took a nice person to help other people. Not to say that people who didn't help were mean, but there was so much that he had to give up for the sake of tutoring me. He had to give up his extra time to review his own materials. It left him with less time to study for the other classes he had outside of Japanese Literature. If I thought that he was kind before, this was definitely taking the cake. I reminded myself to pay him back if I did pass the next test.

In the end, he gave me instructions, and I began reading the book. He flipped through his notes as if he was looking for anything that he had missed telling me about. I was sure there wasn't judging by how informed he was about books in general.

I glanced over at the second book he brought with him. He told me that it was one of his favorites, his other ones being the other books in that series. Yet, I hadn't read any of them _once._ It was a book that received a lot of praise from both him and critics within the industry. But, what could it be about that gave it that much worth. It was one of those books where either you knew it or you didn't. Those who did, though, only had good things to say about it.

He followed my gaze down to his book. I'd been caught staring again; my eyes went back tot he book in front of me to study from it. He wasn't upset about it, though. His hands the book into my side of the table with a light push. It landed in front of me close enough to see the title beaming in red font. Ditching the first book, I picked the next book up to flip through the pages. While it was obvious that it was used, it was still in good condition, letting me know that it was Kaneki's own personal copy.

' **It's book one,'** the note he passed next explained. **'You can read that, too, if you like. I remember you saying you've never read it.'**

I gently placed his book back down on the table. **'Will it help with studying?'**

' **Probably not.'**

I chuckled at his blunt answer, and responded. **'Thank you.'**

Sunflowers was a good book. I was only a few pages in, but I could tell that it was going to become another one of my favorites. I tended to stay away from books like this one because it was easy to make me cry. Death was something that I had never personally dealt with. Still imagining it was the closest I ever got, and it hit me in the heart every time. I tried not to get too far into it for the sake of not getting my eyes wet in front of Kaneki.

After reviewing his own notes, he got up to disappear into the classic novel section. My guess was that he was going to go hunting for more of the professor's recommendations. I had taken all of his books from him, after all. I felt guilty about stealing all of his material, but he told me several times that it was okay. He'd rather me take them to pass the next test than to read them over again for the tenth time. He was an avid reader, apparently.

When he came back, he was carrying two more books, and I was well into the second chapter. My organic chemistry textbooks were long since forgotten. Everything it described, from how Japan got roped into the war from a child's perspective, to the life of people in the nineteenth century, hooked me in as if it were a movie. I imagined that it already must have been by now. But, everyone knew that the books were always better than the movies.

We read our books in silence. We had nothing to say to each other after that last message, which was a good thing to me. He could now return to studying in peace without having to worry about helping me. At least, everything was peaceful until I noticed the clock hanging on the wall behind him.

It was almost eight. I'd been studying for a whole hour; class was about to start across campus in a few minutes. My general psychology, the class that I shared with Yumiko, was about a ten minute walk from where I was now. There was no way I'd manage to snag a seat in the front. I would be walking in just as the class began rather than five minutes early. I let out a sigh. Leave it to me to lose track of time because of a book.

I glanced up at Kaneki. He was buried into some book with three pounds of dust on the sleeves. Right left, right left, his bright eyes scanned the pages almost religiously. He didn't look like he was going to get up for class anytime soon. Perhaps that was why I didn't bother checking the time. Since he wasn't getting up, I figured I didn't have to, either.

My fingers gripped around my pen to write a message to him. I slid it across the table a little too hard; it floated over to his side before landing on his book. Not that it caught him off guard. He immediately went to reading the note as if it were apart of the book in the first place.

' **Do you have class right now?'** was all that I had asked.

He shook his head, handing me the paper once he was done writing. **'I start class around nine.'**

He was one of the smart students who picked the classes starting later in the day opposed to eight in the morning. When I began my second class, he was beginning his first. That meant that our shared class was only his second class of the day. There was a spark of jealousy, of course, my I shook that off, replacing it with hopefulness. Since I was going to be late enough as it was, why not skip my first class entirely to study here?

' **Do you mind if I stay here to study with you?'** I asked him next.

He shook his head again. He closed the book he was reading, standing up to leave the table. He pushed the chair in before walking to my side of the table, sitting in the vacant seat to my left. He'd brought his notes and books along with him to show he wasn't going to go back to the other side. I simply watched a he flipped his notebook open to a page filled with notes.

He used a separate sheet of paper to explain more things to me. Rather than spending the extra hour reading on our own, he was focused on making sure I knew the material. I took notes in my own notebook as he explained everything to me. It was the least that I could do to show him that I was listening. He should've been spending his hour before class relaxing, not tutoring the girl who was _ditching_ class. But, he didn't seem to have a problem with it, so neither did I.

I left the library at eight forty-five. His next class was in the building by the library, so he was going to stay behind since he didn't have to leave early. Mine, on the other hand, was biochemistry, and was a good ways away to walk. We had exchanged goodbyes after he told me to come find him if I had more questions. The whole 'constantly running into your neighbor' thing came in handy during times like this. He also told me that ditching class to study defeated the purpose, which made me turn red all the way to my ears. I guessed I wasn't discrete enough about that.

I'd gotten an email from my mother after my biochemistry test. She made it a habit to email at least three times a week to check that I was doing okay. I couldn't blame her for it; I was her only child and several miles away in a city neither of us knew anything about. I clutched my bag over my shoulder, weaving through the mob of students to leave the Department of Pharmacy building. It'd only take a moment to let her know that I was fine. She deserved that much.

However, before I could press send, something slapped over my mouth. My brows furrowed in confusion as I was knocked off balance, my back forced against something hard. The feeling against my lips told me that it was a hand; someone was trying to catch me off guard. I barked out muffled threats in an attempt to be freed, arms thrashing as well. It didn't work. Whoever it was had a tight grip on me with no plans of letting go.

They dragged me down the building's short flight of steps. My feet fumbled over each other, trying to resist being dragged behind the building where they wanted me to go. Students were staring in confusion and frustration for all of the commotion at nearly ten in the morning. I didn't blame them. It wasn't like I asked to be harrassed.

But, of course, I should have known who it was. Once we were in the more secluded part behind the building, the person let me go. I immediately put as much distance as I could between them. My first initial thought was that it was Hideyoshi, but even he wasn't bold enough to do that. There was only one other person I knew, and the flaming red hair of my kidnapper proved me correct. It had been Yumiko the whole time.

I glared at her, attempting to smooth my hair out. Throat cracking, I asked her what the hell was wrong with her. It was the first time she had ever heard me speak without means of pen and paper. It had caught her off guard, taking her a minute to decipher my words, though once she did, she glared right back.

I took a cautious step backward. _Why was she glaring when she was the one who kidnapped me?_

She watched while I dug into my bag to get my communication notebook. My thumb clicked open my ballpoint pen with as much fury as I could thrust into it. It wasn't very much, but I wasn't a very big girl. There wasn't much I could do besides yell, and even then Yumiko wouldn't understand me.

' **I was in the library!'** I scrambled down, holding it up for her to see. **'I was studying with Kaneki! I have another Japanese Literature test next week!'**

Yumiko's left brow shot up in confusion, her head tilting to the side, before she took the notebook to reply. **'Who's Kaneki?'**

' **Hide's friend, remember?'** I deadpanned, all of my rage melting into exasperation.

' **Oh! The harmless one, I remember him.'**

I took the notebook to question her some more. None of that had to do with why she dragged me behind a building against my will in front of everyone. In fact, there was no correlation at all. It also didn't explain why she glared at me like that. Or . . . was it because I had skipped out on class with her? Had she been expecting me to come today? Since she was older than me, we only shared that class, so I could understand why. Maybe she just had something important to talk to me about.

I never got the chance to ask her. Like a puppy with a one track mind, the moment someone walked past us, her eyes were following their every move. Upon further inspection, I quickly understood why. Messy brown hair, drowsy green eyes, long legs, and earbuds in his ears, Hiroto Anzai managed to blend in with everyone, yet stand out at the same time. At least, he did while Yumiko was around.

She cupped her hands around her mouth to shout after him. He froze up before speed walking away from us as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself. I almost laughed; he was trying to get away from our mutual friend. Not that it meant anything to Yumiko. One moment she was next to me, the next she was chasing after him, waving her fist around.

Anzai didn't bother turning around. He broke off into a sprint the moment he heard the girl's footsteps behind him. The two of them ran around in circles trying to either get away from or get the other. Anzai was pretty fast, but Yumiko was never too far behind him. She did tell me that she was really interested in soccer back in her high school days. Perhaps that was where she got all her stamina from. Still, people were starting to stare, and I found myself sweat dropping as I pretended not to know the two of them.

Yumiko caught up with Anzai enough to grab him. While a sane person would've assumed she'd grab his arm or his shirt, she grabbed him by his bronze locks. He was yanked backward into a sudden stop. I winced, and his face contorted in pain, his lips parting to let out a yelp no doubt. He tried to pry the girl's hands off of his hair while she dragged him back over to where I was standing. Behind them, a blond boy was clutching his own hair in sympathy.

She let him go once they reached me. His hair was standing upright in bunched up spikes because of her. He stood up straight, combing through the strands in disappointment. Whether it be because she caught him or because she messed up his natural bedhead, I couldn't tell.

I waved to him in an apologetic greeting. He sighed, his expression utterly defeated, and returned my gesture.

Yumiko took the communication notebook from me to write down. **'Yay, what perfect timing! Since you're both here, we can all hang out together!'**

At that, Anzai attempted to speed walk away again. Unfortunately, we all saw that coming. Yumiko grabbed the poor boy by his shirt collar to keep him from running off like a mad man. All he could do was close his eyes and sigh.

* * *

" _ **I DON'T UNDERSTAND** why it's always me who ends up in these situations."_

I nodded in agreement with Anzai's sign language. It seemed like wherever I went, something was sure to follow. It was starting to make me regret searching for a more exciting life. When I said I wanted to experience something different, I wasn't exactly talking about being dragged behind buildings against my will, being forced to hang out during school hours, or going to a karaoke lounge for goodness sake.

The both of us knew there was no way we were going to get out of Yumiko's clutches. She had her nails sunk far to deep into our backs to run away from her. Anzai knew that better than I did; he hadn't even attempted to run off a _third_ time. He claimed that she would make him bald before the age of twenty-five due to how much she grabs his hair. Apparently, yanking at his roots was a daily occurrence for her.

When she said hang out, I figured that she meant somewhere in campus since school wasn't over. I still had four more classes to get through. But, she had other plans. I found myself sighing after she dragged me through the entrance of the university and onto the streets of Neruma, Tokyo. Still, this wasn't something that I had been expecting. Food, maybe, but karaoke was far down the list.

I slumped further into the uncomfortable, blue, leather seat. The room we rented was painted a dull white with old records hanging on the walls. The floor was wooden and scuffed from many years of hosting get-togethers. A projector hung from the ceiling on one side of the room to reflect onto the wall on the other side. A U-shaped white booth with blue seats was pushed against the wall underneath the projector. With a white, plastic table in front of it to hold drinks and snacks, it faced the karaoke machine in front of the projector screen. The one that was currently flashing the words to some new pop song.

" _Yumiko is always making me ditch class,"_ I signed to my brown-haired companion.

He rolled his eyes in response. _"Why the hell are we even here? We're not high school students at a mixer."_

He had a point. The only time I saw people going to karaoke places was on television, and almost all of the time, they were high school students. It was _'the big thing'_ for younger people to do. Yet, here we were, eighteen and nineteen-years-old, sitting in a shut off room in front of a karaoke machine.

We deadpanned in unison as we watched Yumiko flail her arms around. No matter how spotty and bad my hearing was, nothing I did could block out the second-long glimpses of her singing that I occasionally caught. Each time, they were off-key. I felt bad that Anzai had to endure the actual thing by himself.

She spun around, clutching the microphone in her hand. Her hips swung to a beat I couldn't hear. It forced the sundress she was wearing to twirl around her thighs like a reminder that it was spring. She pointed a finger at us to engage us in her performance. Instead, we froze up, exchanging looks before staring at her incredulously. She then blew us off to belt out a note that made Anzai wince beside me.

I reached for my drink on the table with a sigh. This wasn't the first time that I was forced to ditch class to run off somewhere in the city. It was just about the fourth time, honestly. Hopefully my grades wouldn't suffer from my friend's spontaneous whims. Either that, or I should learn how to hide around campus better. Perhaps I should dye my hair blonde so she wouldn't be able to spot me so easily. I was sure that Anzai himself has thought about that a few times.

Her excuse for all of this was that she hasn't hung out with either of us recently. I had been spending all of my free time studying to ensure that Kimi and I got a good grade on our organic chemistry project. She said that Anzai has been working overtime at his part-time job since two weeks ago . . . or so he tells her. She was right about not being able to hang out. That didn't mean kidnap us, though, making this the _third_ time I'd been stolen by her.

Reaching into my book bag, I pulled out Kaneki's book. It was the one by Takatsuki Sen that I had yet to get even a page into. However, the moment I opened it, Yumiko held up a sign she had pre-wrote on the way here. She must have known that I was going to try to study or read during our time together.

' **Don't you dare take that out! We're not here to learn!'** it happily displayed in pink ink.

I put the book back into my bag with another sigh. So much for trying to get things done.

The screen in front of us finished up the last few lyrics, bringing the song to an end. Yumiko flopped onto the empty side of the booth with an accomplished smile. I didn't know what for. It was the fifth song she finished, and they started to lose their magic after the third one.

Anzai signed, his lips moving as he spoke his words at the same time, _"I want to go home."_

Yumiko got up from the booth to tap at the karaoke machine. She flicked through the display of music categories until she landed on whatever she was looking for. We watched as the words **'I Want To Go Home by Johnny Cash'** flashed across the projector screen. It was timed so well that I had to let out a laugh at her antics.

The redhead held out her microphone toward him. The lyrics on the screen were both Japanese and English, meaning that the song was an American one. Regardless, Anzai hesitantly took the microphone, and performed lyrics that I couldn't hear. By the look on Yumiko's face, he was speaking instead of singing, but she didn't interrupt him, choosing to take what she could get.

His lips formed words that I didn't recognize. At first I thought he was just speaking too fast for me to keep up. But, I soon noticed that the vowels he was forming were too strong to be Japanese. He was speaking English . . . fluently, from the looks of it. That made it the third language that Anzai knew, and more than likely not the last. A genius if there ever was one, that was for sure.

I stuck to reading the Japanese lyrics for the remainder of the song. It went on to explain how the singer wanted to go home where they had a home on the ranch. I wasn't paying too much attention to it, rather the happy look on Yumiko's face as she watched her friend. Him somewhat participating must not have happened often.

Yumiko started singing another song once Anzai's ended. She appeared two times more excited than she was a few minutes ago. I guessed she hadn't been expecting either of us to join into her little karaoke parade. Much less the stoic Hiroto Anzai.

Anzai glanced over to me to get my attention. I raised an eyebrow in question. Yumiko was off in her own world singing some song from a popular show about pirates or something like that.

" _She's always involving me in these kind of things,"_ he explained to me, using his hands to signify his words.

I tilted my head in response. _"What do you mean? Do you guys come here all the time?"_

" _No, no,"_ he signed. _"She—"_

He never got the chance to sign the rest of what he was going to say. Yumiko put the microphone back into the holder, waving her hand around to get our attention. We looked at her, and she pointed to the door, mouthing that she wanted to get more food. I nodded in understanding. We _were_ running low on snacks. So, she sent us one last wink, heading through the door to scope out the food bar in the main room.

The door closed behind her. It left the room in more silence than what I was used to. I was always thankful for the occasional muffled whispers of sound that I got on the good days. However, now there was nothing, and I found myself wishing that Yumiko would come back already.

With all of the distractions out of the way, Anzai continued what he was trying to tell me. _"What I was trying to say was that Yumiko didn't have a lot of friends in high school,"_ he told me. _"I had my own friend group and would always see her by herself."_

I furrowed my brows. Yumiko was so flamboyant in everything that she did. She was the last person I expected to be alone in school. She was the kind of person that knew everyone, was the class president, and spoke to the students during announcements. To hear that she wasn't had caught me completely by surprise. Was the Yumiko we knew now a disguise to hide who she really was?

" _Why? Yumiko looks very friendly,"_ I replied.

He nodded. _"She is. Her mother was sick often, so she always had to take care of her younger sister. She should be in her first year of high school now, if I remember correctly. Her mother is fine now, too, but back when she wasn't, Yumiko gave up her social life for responsibility."_

My eyes went wide. Who knew that Yumiko went through so much? I knew that everyone had a story, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate, but it was still something that I hadn't foreseen. I had always thought she was a bubbly person without any care in the world. For years she struggled to keep up with her sister and stay by her sick mother's side. I couldn't imagine how that must have felt for her.

" _We became friends because we were both raised by single mothers. We kind of bonded over that in our second year of high school,"_ he continued. _"Ever since then, whenever I find time, I hang out with her to help ease her loneliness. I guess not socializing for so long has kind of made it difficult for her to make other friends. But, she has you now, so you're dragged into her schemes right along with me."_

I smiled and chuckled. Yumiko only wanted to hang out with us because she was lonely. She didn't mean to drag us out of class, or do anything to upset us. We were all that she had at the moment outside of her small family. For that, I thought it was a privilege that she felt she could take a break from all of that when she was around me. Wasn't that was friends were for? To stay with each other when the other needs it the most?

The door opened to reveal the redhead holding a small tray of snacks. She waddled over to place them on the white table in front of us. She had even made sure to grab Anzai another soda. She was being thoughtful, and after hearing Anzai tell me why, I felt that much more glad to have her as a friend.

Her looked between us with a raised brow, no doubt asking what we were talking about. Instead of answering, I stood up, standing on the tips of my toes to throw my arms around her in a hug. She looked more confused than ever. Still, she hugged me back, glancing over at Anzai for answers. The boy simply shrugged his shoulders, grabbing his new drink to open it.

I let her go to tap on the karaoke screen. The first duet to come up was an old one; I remembered it from my childhood. Selecting the song, I picked up a microphone before holding the second one out for Yumiko. She appeared so shocked, so in awe that I wanted to sing with her. She finally grinned and took the extra microphone from my awaiting hand. If she wanted to have fun, I was going to make sure she had fun.

I was being selfish. I was so caught up in my own feelings that I didn't once consider hers. She was a person, too. Yumiko felt frustration, sadness, happiness, loneliness, all of that, and what kind of person would I be if I didn't try to relieve that load for her? She came to us in a moment of need.

The world didn't just run on coincidence. It ran on the people that were involved in them. The way we treated each other, who we depended on, also effected the flow of things. Whether one decided to answer when someone called was up to them. What happened after was the effect of that cause. And after finally realizing that I was being called upon this whole time by my new friend, I was prepared to answer.

Though I was sure my words were slurred and jumbled, I sang the song with Yumiko. I could only hope that I remembered the beat and timing as well as I thought I did. Either way, she hopped around the small room in a fit of smiles, so I couldn't help but do the same. We belted out obnoxious lyrics about partying to each other as she twirled me around in circles. It didn't matter if I was making a fool out of myself or not. I was with good company, and it was a lot more fun than studying. That was for sure.

I took a quick glance at Anzai during the performance. Though he hadn't made a move to get up from that spot, he was smirking slightly, arms folded over his chest as if he were proud. Of Yumiko, perhaps, for being able to escape her bubble for once.

The three of us were so similar. Yet, we were so very different, especially with our backgrounds. We were all raised by single mothers, and experienced some hardship along the way to get to Kamii University. We all came from diverse households with either too much or too little to offer. It was what made us . . . us, and I hoped that regardless of our past, I could see myself with them in the future. Including Anzai, whom was the most recent person that I'd met.

I hoped that I could be there whenever any of them needed to be picked up. I hoped that I could be someone that someone relied on. I hoped that I could help relieve any pain that was caused by something otherwise out of their control. I hoped that I could be there to make them smile, and help them just like they've helped me. Because since I've moved here, all of my skies have gotten a little brighter.

And hopefully, they would stay that way.

* * *

 **Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! Also, thank you to everyone who comments, favorites, and follows the story! I wasn't expecting it to be this big so soon!**

 **Fun Fact of the Chapter: Nana's favorite color is blue.**

 **~ Insane**


End file.
